God's Love in Your Language

What’s your ‘Love Language’?

Maybe you haven’t read Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages. In it, Chapman describes five ways that we communicate our love for others: 1) Words of Affirmation; 2) Quality Time; 3) Acts of Service; 4) Gift-giving; 5) and Physical Touch.

Would you consider yourself a hugger? Then ‘Physical Touch’ might just be your love language.

Perhaps you’re a gift-giver – someone who is great at giving thoughtful, heartfelt gifts.

Maybe you say “I love you” with acts of service – fixing your spouse’s car, cleaning your neighbor’s gutters, picking your friend up from O’Hare during rush hour.

Do you feel loved when people listen to you over a cup of coffee, a phone call, or a long walk?

Then ‘Quality Time’ might be your love language.

But if you’re like me, you listen for ‘love’ in Words of Affirmation – words of appreciation, affirmation, empathy, and encouragement.

Now, to be clear, Gary Chapman’s theory that we all prefer one love language over another hasn’t been tested or proven. In fact, as you were thinking about those five love languages, you were probably sensing there was more than one that speaks to you.

Either way, it feels good when your friends, your neighbors, or your spouse speak your love language, doesn’t it? You feel validated. You feel belonging. You feel special. You feel like you’re seen – like you matter to someone.

Chapman’s point is this: if you want to relay “I love you” to someone, you’ll love them in their language.

Acts 2 is all about language. And when we would wonder how the good news of Jesus could possibly be clearly or effectively communicated to such a diverse audience, God the Holy Spirit would do just that. For a brief moment in time – God the Holy Spirit would uniquely and miraculously equip Jesus’ disciples to communicate to this diverse audience God’s love for them in their own language.

The Diversity of Pentecost

The Jewish Festival of Pentecost, or Shavout, “the Feast of Weeks”, was an annual harvest festival marking the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest. 50 days after the celebration of the Passover, Israelites from all over the Mediterranean world would journey to Jerusalem to present a thank offering to God – the first fruits of their wheat harvest in the form of two loaves of bread. On this joyous day, Jerusalem’s population would swell by the thousands.

But Pentecost didn’t just draw a crowd; it drew a diverse crowd. 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.

There may have been as many as 15 languages spoken by the diverse crowd of thousands and thousands of worshippers that gathered in Jerusalem for the Festival of Pentecost. These worshippers most certainly were fluent in either Aramaic, Greek, or both, but this diverse group of worshippers had a native language, too – a heart language from their homeland.

Put yourself in their shoes.

You’re in a different country using a language that isn’t natively yours to get around. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be? Trying to communicate or understand what others are saying to you, and yet – even at your best – something always seems to get lost in translation?

And that’s when you hear it: you hear your heart language cutting across all the other noise and commotion.

Your language would get your attention, wouldn’t it? You’d tune in to that message because it would appear that you are clearly part of its intended audience. You’d tune in because it would seem, whatever they had to say, that message is intended for someone just like you.

Can you imagine their reaction when this incredibly diverse crowd heard Jesus’ disciples proclaiming the good news of Jesus in their heart language? They were utterly amazed! But not just amazed. They were perplexed. They’re not only confused about the content of what they heard, but confused about the spectacular way it was being communicated to them. They heard these uneducated, Galilean men declaring the wonders of God fluently in their language and all the other languages of the worshippers who were there! And they ask the obvious: “What does this mean?”

“How does this event speak to me?”

But they’re not the only ones asking this question: we’re asking that question, too. “What does this mean? What does this event than happened at a Jewish harvest festival 2,000 years ago have to do with me living today?”

The 21st century skeptic would answer “absolutely nothing.” Our postmodern world may not dismiss this clearly miraculous event as those other onlookers did – writing it off as just a bunch of guys who’ve had too much to drink. But our world would read a story like this and wonder, “How is any of this still relevant? We’re so far removed from when these events happened! How does this account – or any Biblical account – overcome language barriers between us and the original audience who lived at a time and place radically different from mine? Why should I care about God equipping these men to communicate in different languages? There are dozens of apps I can download that can do the exact same thing! What makes this Pentecost so significant?”

But we’re tempted to respond in a similar way, aren’t we? We’re searching for ourselves in this story. We’re looking for ourselves in the diverse crowd of worshippers and we wonder, How does Pentecost speak to my declining health?

How does this miracle speak to my recent unemployment?

How does this event speak to my self-hatred and poor self-esteem?

How does this speak to my crippling anxiety? How does this speak to my fears about the immediate future?

How does this speak to the grief welling up within my heart?

How does this speak to my inability to love those who have cheated and wronged me?

How does this speak to my regrets and failures?

How does this speak to my feelings of guilt and shame?

How does this speak to the trainwreck that is my ruined life?

The ‘You’ in “Everyone”

And that’s when you hear what sounds like the blowing of a violent wind. You rush to investigate the house where this noise is coming from.

And that’s when you hear something else.

You hear about God’s love for you.

You hear about how God your Heavenly Father would love this fallen world so much he would send his Son to rescue it. You hear about God the Son who became a human being to save you, who perfectly walked every mile in your shoes, who was tempted in every way we are, yet he didn’t sin once – all so that his obedience would be made ours! You hear how Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sins – to die the death we deserved – so that we who cling to him in faith would have eternal life! Jesus is the very love language of God!  

And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved!

You hear how Jesus rose again from the grave, which verifies he is your Savior and he’s paid your debt in full! You would hear that you, in Christ, are forgiven! You would hear how it is entirely because of God’s unearned, undeserved love that you have been reconciled to him.

God’s Love in Your Language

And before Satan or your sinful nature would try to convince you that you are simply beyond the reach of God’s love, know this:

God speaks his love for you in your language.

That God the Holy Spirit enabled those disciples for a time to communicate the gospel fluently in the heart languages of those in Jerusalem is tangible proof that your God’s love for you didn’t get lost in communication.

That these Galilean men are proclaiming the love of God that is ours in Christ in the language of everyone there is evidence that the message of reconciliation to God through Christ and deliverance from sin and death truly is for everyone. I will pour out my Spirit on all people, says the LORD.

Young and old, men and women, Jew and Gentile.

That undeniably includes you! These words are for you!

You see, we don’t need another Pentecost to receive God’s Spirit, because the Son of God who sent forth his Holy Spirit that Pentecost is the same Jesus who pours out his Spirit through Word and sacrament – who poured out his Spirit at the waters of your baptism to make you a child of God!

The same Jesus who spoke life into a dead man is the one whose language breathes life into us!

The God whose language brought forth this entire universe is the God whose love language creates faith in the hearts of people – even little children!

God’s love language speaks to your anxiety, as he promises that he will never leave you nor forsake you! God’s love language speaks to your guilt, as your Savior assures you that he will forgive our wickedness and remember our sins no more! God’s love language speaks to your fears about the future, as your risen Lord points to his nail-pierced hands and says, “Peace be with you!” God’s love language speaks hope, joy, and peace to every restless mind, every burdened conscience, and every grieving heart. God’s love language speaks to our anxiety when everything seems to be spiraling out of control, and our God comforts us with the reality that he remains Lord of all things – and all things are being worked by him for our eternal good! And he, by his Spirit, will remind you of these promises until the day he takes you home to be with him.

You may be waiting for those closest to you to love you in your language.

But you don’t have to wait for your Savior to do that. He already has!

Your Savior would touch the sick and make them well. Your Savior spent quality time with people just like us, just as he still spends quality time with us every time you open your Bible. Your Savior, the ultimate gift-giver, gave his life into death so that you would be given forgiveness and heaven as your eternal home! Your Savior humbly became a servant to save you!

Your God loves you in your language!

Now those are some words of affirmation.