Love Is a Four-Letter Word
By Rev. Heidi L. Barham | August 30, 2026
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Read Romans 12:9 – 21 (NIV)
Our New Testament lesson this morning picks up where we left off last week in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman church… and I do believe that the message found in this passage of Scripture is important for us to hear today.
Now, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that someone looked at the title of this morning’s sermon and either chuckled or decided the Pastor had lost her mind… LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD?
No, I have not lost my mind… at least not completely. I do know that the words we more commonly refer to as four-letter words are generally categorized as expletives or swear words… words that we tend not to say in polite company at the risk of offending someone else… however, the fact of the matter is that, technically speaking, LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD…
L-O-V-E.
However, I feel compelled to note that this particular four-letter word stands in stark contrast to two other four-letter words that we find in the first verse of the text… and those two words are hate and evil.
Now, throughout these verses that call for our attention this morning, Paul is essentially offering encouragement to steer clear of hate and evil and let love lead the way… because in the unforgettable words of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, “What the world needs now, is love sweet love…. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”
As we take a closer look at the text… it almost reads as if it came straight out of Jesus’ handbook for how we ought to live in community with one another.
Along the lines of the policies and procedures manual at a place of employment… or the rules and regulations of a Homeowners’ Association… or the constitution and bylaws of a civic organization… Paul’s letter to the Romans provides us with a set of guidelines and expectations for how we ought to work, live, and play together.
And so, looking at the first verses of the text we read:
These verses seem to align with what we find in Matthew 22 (34 – 40), where we find the record of Jesus’ response to the religious leader who questioned Him about which was the greatest commandment…Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Jesus responded to the religious leader by citing Deuteronomy and Leviticus:
Simply put, the greatest commandment calls for us to have love for God, love for neighbor, and love for self.“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Just imagine, if you will… if everyone was intentional about loving God and loving others as well as loving themselves… while remaining focused on serving God and the people of God… there would be no room for evil and no time left for hate.
And what a wonderful world that would be…
So, perhaps we can consider today’s text as a call to replace selfishness with selflessness… a call to focus less on self and focus more on what is good as we intentionally think about others first.
Now, looking at the next verses in today’s text, we read:
These verses harken back to Jesus’ Sermon the Mount where we find these words, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 5:43 – 44).Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
Love and pray… both four-letter words, I might add… but four-letter words that encourage us to do for our enemies what may not come easily for most of us.
It is important to note that these verses from Romans also encourage us to reflect on Jesus’ willingness and intentionality in associating with the very people who are often marginalized, ostracized and pushed to the outer edges of society…
In our text, Paul refers to these as people of “low position” …in other words, the sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes… the sick and the homeless and imprisoned… the foreigner here under temporary protected status…
The very ones that Jesus was speaking of when He said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did [or did not do] for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did [or did not do] for me” (see Matthew 25:34 – 45).
Now, if we keep reading the text, we will find that Paul does not only take a few pages out of Jesus’ handbook… being the scholar that he is… Paul also takes a deep dive into the Hebrew Scriptures… which we know as the Old Testament.
And in these next verses from our text, Paul is referring to the Book of Deuteronomy (32:35) as well as the Book of Proverbs (25:21-22) when we read:
There are some folks who might refer to this as killing someone with kindness… but given the environment that we are living in today… that is probably not the best analogy to use…Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Perhaps it would be better to paraphrase these verses along the lines of something my grandmother used to say which is, “You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”
Essentially, what these verses suggest is that we will not be successful in winning souls for Christ if we spend all our time spewing words filled with anger and hatred… venom and vitriol… that is what the rest of the world has made a habit of doing on a daily basis… and so, it is up to us… as the church… the body of believers… to offer something different from the rest of the world.
Words of affirmation, validation, and confirmation… words of encouragement, enlightenment, and empowerment.
We need to be that beacon on a hill… that light shining in the darkness… signaling to others that this is a safe space where they are welcome to come… assuring them that this is a place and we are a people who can appreciate the fact that LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD.
And that brings us to that last verse of the text which reads, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Paul tells us that the antidote to overcome evil is good…
And that dovetails with what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his 1961 speech, “Loving Your Enemies.”
It is a speech that is still very relevant to this day and is worth reading in its entirety but for our time left together this morning, I want to invite our attention to a few excerpts. [The full text of the speech can be found at: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-detroit-council-churches-noon-lenten]
In explaining why we should love our enemies, Dr. King said this:
Dr. King asserted that we must love because of what hate does… not only to the victim of the hatred… but what it also does to the soul and the personality of the one who hates.I would say the first reason, and I’m sure Jesus had this in mind, we should love our enemies is this: to return evil for evil only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. And somewhere along the way of life, somebody must have sense enough, somebody must have morality enough, somebody must have religion enough, to cut off the chain of hate and evil. And this can only be done by meeting hate with love. For you see in a real sense, if we return hate for hate, violence for violence, and all of that, it just ends up destroying everybody. And nobody wins in the long run. And it is the strong man who stands up in the midst of violence and refuses to return it. It is the strong man, not the weak man, who stands up in the midst of hate and returns love.
He explained it this way:
Let me suggest that it is incumbent upon us as followers of Christ to love everyone… even those who hate… make that, especially those who hate… because that is what Jesus would do… and that is exactly what Jesus did do…Jesus realized that hate does something to the personality of the hater, and so the individual who hates can’t see right. The individual who hates can’t walk right. The individual who hates loses his sense of objectivity and his sense of values. And so for the individual who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly, and the ugly becomes beautiful. The true becomes false, and the false becomes true. The evil becomes good, and the good becomes evil. The person who hates loses the power of rationality and objectivity. And so again Jesus was right—love your enemies. (Yeah) Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you because hate can destroy the personality.
Even as He hung on the cross, Jesus said this about those who were responsible for His crucifixion, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Talk about the epitome of extending grace!
Now, looking back at Dr. King’s speech, he went on to talk about the redemptive power of love:
Now, perhaps someone is sitting here or listening on the phone wondering how we can possibly love people who have committed extremely vile acts and done truly despicable things.…love has within its very power transforming qualities. And we notice hate and think about it. Hate serves to destroy. Love serves to build up. Hate seeks destructive ends. Love seeks constructive ends. Hate seeks to annihilate. Love seeks to convert. Hate seeks to live in monologue. Love seeks to live in dialogue. And it is only through love that we are able to redeem and transform the enemy neighbor.
And so when Jesus says, “love the enemy,” he’s saying love the enemy because there is something about love that can transform, that can change, that can arouse the conscience of the enemy. And only by doing this are you able to transform the jangling discords of society into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood and understanding.
Well, I am glad you asked, because earlier in Dr. King’s speech we find these words:
So, when we put the words of Dr. King, the Apostle Paul and most of all Jesus into perspective… we end up with a clear understanding that we have been called to love… because God first loved us (see 1 John 4:19).…I’m so happy [Jesus] didn’t say, “Like your enemies,” because it’s kind of difficult to like some people. Like is sentimental; like is an affectionate sort of thing. And you can’t like anybody who’s bombing your home and threatening your children. It’s hard to like a senator who’s spending all of his time in Washington standing against all of the legislation that will make for better relationships and that will make for brotherhood. It’s difficult to like them. But Jesus says, “Love them,” and love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive, creative goodwill for all men. And so Jesus was expressing something very creative when he said, “Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you.”
And God loved us so much that He was willing to give us His Son as our Savior… “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
And that truly is the epitome of love. As Paul wrote earlier in his letter to the Romans, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
And as Jesus, Himself, said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
Love really is a four-letter word… and it went all the way to a cross at Calvary… so that we would have eternal life… and so, we would continue to tell the story about Jesus, our Savior, our Brother, and our Friend.
And if that is a story that you are willing to tell… then I want to invite you to stand now and join in singing our Hymn of Discipleship: I Love to Tell the Story #480 Back
