Ben Lippen Podcast

The God of Love

• Ben Lippen Podcast • Season 2 • Episode 6

Share episode

Love that only lives in feelings fades fast. Love that takes action changes homes, classrooms, churches, and neighborhoods. In this Advent conversation, we sit down with Cliff Evans, high school Bible teacher and pastor, to map a clear, practical path from affection to action and from good intentions to habits that actually serve people. We start with four anchors of biblical love: sacrificial, unconditional, committed, and active. Then we bring them to life with stories from marriage and parenting, where small choices, like how you handle a tense moment or even a load of laundry, become the training ground for a love that stays when it’s hard.

From there, we widen the lens to our shared life. How do we love neighbors who don’t think or vote like we do? What does disciplined love look like in a school on a tired Friday, or online when outrage is easy and empathy is rare? We connect the practices of patience and service to the heart of Advent: God’s decisive act of love in sending Jesus. The Nativity scene becomes more than a tradition—it’s a study in love that listens and moves, with Mary’s pondering, Joseph’s faithfulness, and shepherds who run to witness good news. That same pattern calls us to small, consistent acts that open doors for the Gospel in ordinary places.

This is a warm, candid, and deeply practical reflection for anyone who wants to move beyond hollow sentiment into a love that heals. You’ll leave with a renewed vision of love as disciplined practice, a challenge to cross social lines with genuine care, and a fresh appreciation for Advent as love in motion. If this conversation helps you, share it with a friend, leave a review, and subscribe so you don’t miss the next step in our Advent journey.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to our Advent Podcast series, where we prepare our hearts to celebrate the coming of Christ. During Advent, we remember that God entered our world bringing hope, peace, love, and joy, not as distant concepts, but as gifts fulfilled in Jesus. Each week, you'll hear from a special guest who will share scripture and personal testimony as we reflect on what it means to live in Christ's presence. Whether you're listening at home, in the classroom, or on the go, our prayer is that this conversation draws you closer to the heart of Jesus, who is Emmanuel, God with us.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Ben Lipin Podcast. We are continuing on our journey through advent. And today we're going to be talking about love. And I have another special guest with us here today, Mr. Cliff Evans. So, Mr. Evans, will you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do here at Ben Lipin?

SPEAKER_00:

My name is Cliff Evans. I'm in my third year teaching here at Ben Lipin, a high school Bible teacher. I love it with every bit of me. But in addition to teaching here at Ben Lipin, I'm also a pastor at Rock the Baptist Church in Windsboro, South Carolina. I've been pastoring there for a couple of months now. It is a joy to be on mission in this city that I grew up in. I've been married for 16 years now to my wife, April. We have three kids. The youngest is in seventh grade here. Fully enjoying being a part of this community and then living as taking up a big part of my heart.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Well, we're grateful to have you here, especially a part of our Bible department here in the high school. So we've talked about peace, we've talked about hope, we've talked about joy. Now we're gonna pivot into love. So uh let's just hop right in. Mr. Evans, how would you define biblical love, especially in contrast to indifference, apathy, or absence of emotional connection?

SPEAKER_00:

As I was looking around and thinking about how I wanted to define biblical love, I actually came to a small conclusion that biblical love and in some part has a lot to do with the type of love that everyone would probably suggest that they have, whether they're they're Christian or not. But it's the thing about these four concepts that I'm gonna say right now that makes biblical love so much more different than what the common person may refer to as love. Biblical love is sacrificial, it's unconditional, it involves commitment, and it involves action. And if you can give me a moment, I'd love to talk about those individually. Biblical love is sacrificial, and it was first demonstrated by God's act of giving his son for the forgiveness of our sins. He didn't have to do it as him sacrificing his energy, his focus for the uplifting of humanity is sacrificial, which means we may not want to do the things that a call to do for someone that we love unconditional. Doesn't matter the circumstances. The Bible tells us that while we were still sinning, Christ loved us. So no matter what's going on in our lives, if we're practicing biblical love, we're able to demonstrate this level of care that we're talking about, is committed. It's easy to say that you have feelings for someone, you have a certain desire, interest to do something, but if you are expressing biblical love for it, it's not something that you let go easily. You're committed to it. So sacrificial, unconditional, it involves commitment. And I think one of the most important ones, as we just said, he gave his son action. Some of the old folks that were around me when I was growing up, they would say, I can see better than I can hear. And that's them talking about that relationship of someone saying something and someone doing something. And it's easy to say that you love something or your heart is toward it, but what do we see you doing? Is it leading to action? Biblical love is about action. God is showing his people through so many points in redemption history that I love you. You can take 30 steps away from me, but I'm gonna take that much more toward you. Biblical love is sacrificial, unconditional, it involves commitment, and it definitely involves action.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

So developing that a little bit further, how is God's love different from those cultural definitions that are emotions like we just talked about, or preference or performance?

SPEAKER_00:

It reminded me so much of the conversations that I have with my daughters. My two oldest children are girls, and I said, Hey, if a guy is showing interest in you and he said that he has feelings for you, what is he doing? What are his actions? We're talking about things rooted in emotions, preference, and performance. So can he easily stop blocking you or stop having interest in you because I don't know, you change your hairstyle or you stop a certain thing in your weekly routine that you normally do? That's when it's not biblical love. That's when it's not rooted in those concepts we just talked about, being sacrificial, unconditional. Biblical love is unwavering. And I think that's something that I had to grasp as a young man growing up. And I don't think I really truly understood what it was until I got close toward the end of college and I met my wife. Where biblical love and true love, it's not so much about what works for you. You're willing to go the extra mile for someone else to feel better. You're willing to be committed to caring for someone, so it's unwavering. Biblical love is staying focused on that care for someone that that is the object of your eye. It's unselfish. It's easy to do things that really work in your benefit. It's easy to want to go to events that you like to go to, watch things on TV that you want to watch, talk about the things that you want to talk about. But when you truly love someone, you may go to things or do things or even be involved in conversations sometimes you might not be that interested in, but you know they are. And that's an expression of biblical love and it's intentional. I think anyone that is a believer and understands that type of love that God gives to us, He's intentional about how he reaches out to us. Now, that intentionality might not feel good at times because any teacher would know on Fridays, sometimes it can be challenging in the classroom because man, it's toward the end of the week. The the kids are peeking over the horizon into the weekend, and they're like, Okay, Mr. Evans, please tell me we don't have that much to do in class today. We would love to just be able to relax. And then regularly I'll say, Well, because I love you, and then oh man, the crowd starts rumbling in the class. We do actually have work today. And sometimes it's a little bit more than normal. And they're like, What? But you Yes, but I love you so much that I'm being intentional about this work that I've assigned for you today. So sometimes someone's expression of love, this biblical love that we're talking about, it might not always feel good to us, but be good for us.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

And that makes me think of the word disciplined. God's love is disciplined, our love for him, like that true love that he wants us to embody and equips us to embody. It's disciplined.

SPEAKER_00:

And hopefully we have folks in our lives to model that discipline for us. I think that's the big importance of the uh the community of the church, big importance of the community of family, because one gets to see all these different levels of love between their parents. You get to see the love between siblings, between family and friends, between hopefully teachers and students, and it's modeled before them because 1 Timothy 4 7, we must discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness. And this biblical love is a part of living Christ-like and pursuing godliness. It takes work. And a lot of times we get lazy about different parts of our life. And you may just want to take the day off, take the hour off, take the moment off, but it may take investing in doing a particular thing or a particular person that you say you love to demonstrate that love. Because we go back to it again. Biblical love is about action. I know you say you love the Lord or you love your mom, you love your dad, you love your sibling, but how are you showing it?

Mrs. Erin Kay:

That ties into our next point here about how loving others is not always easy. And have you ever had to choose to love someone even when it was hard, or has someone shown you love at a time where you were hard to love?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, indeed. And Aaron, I'm sure you can identify with me absolutely both with marriage and parenting. There's a whole lot of love going on that doesn't feel good at certain times, and a lot of times you don't want to demonstrate it. So I'll talk about my side of the marriage, but I get an opportunity on a weekly and sometimes daily basis to see my wife demonstrate godly biblical love towards me. Because sometimes I can be like the third kid in the house. And I promise you, just about a week ago, I put the wrong article of clothing in the washing machine at the same time. And the look my wife gave me should have stopped time. But that didn't stop her love for me. That didn't stop her demonstrating her love for me ongoingly, may not have been demonstrated actually at that moment. But I get a chance to see my wife love me even when I do things like that. Because the truth of it is, I might not value the importance of those certain things not being in the washing machine at the same time. And I may not truly understand it. But if I say that I love her and I know what biblical love is, then remember, it's about being committed, it's about being unconditional, and it's about action. My love should even be demonstrated from something as small as how I put things in the washing machine. So I was like, even while I was thinking about this, I was like, oh Lord, man, you uh you're stepping on my toes here because I'm reminded I have to care about those things because I love my wife, and ultimately I should be saying, I get to care about those things because I get to demonstrate my love to my wife this way. In the same way, you know, we get those challenges of love with parenting as well. There's some things right now in my life that the love my mom demonstrated to me that I'm not really appreciating until now. So there's so many parts of parenting where we have to demonstrate our love. When I say love, loving someone doesn't always feel good to that person that they might not understand. And sometimes it's hard to love someone when they don't really understand the type of love that you're giving them and why you're doing it for them. And sometimes we can't fully appreciate the love we receive to years later after we've matured, even as a person, or sometimes matured in Christ. So it is a task and it's hard work even in parenting to demonstrate love, but it's also a gift that God gives us and shapes us to be more like us. So I know a lot of times we pray, Lord, we want to see things like you and be like you, but sometimes that comes through, especially if you're a parent, the tough parts of making decisions when they're liked or not. And that is fine-tuning you to be more like Christ, even in moments when we don't think about it.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

For sure. And you're making me think too about the things that Christ did for us and how the Lord works in our lives and how we can't always fully understand his love for us until later. And sometimes it might be eternity before we figure out, oh, okay, now that makes sense. And that's where that faith and that trust comes in.

SPEAKER_00:

Because as I was thinking about this so much, I was like, man, that's when you're talking about love, it's pulling in so many other concepts and you know avenues of the Christian life. I know we've already talked about the theme of hope on the podcast, but man, if one has that type of hope and the Lord's coming again for us, then how much more should we be loving people? And we're talking about love that goes beyond just the romantic type of love with one spouse or even the love for parents, but the love that we see for our neighbor. Because God calls us to love our neighbor and everyone is our neighbor. Even sometimes as believers, when we, based on our socioeconomic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, sometimes we don't show enough love to certain people of society, and we must fight that at every moment. Because if we say we are demonstrating the love of Christ because he first loved us, then we must do our best to cut that type of disconnect off when we have a certain disposition towards someone based on how they look, how they talk, political background, political side. We must demonstrate biblical love, which is unconditional. And I know sometimes, even as believers, we don't do that the best way, especially on social media, based on whether things we're saying, what we're demonstrating at church, what we're doing out in the community, even things that we are or are not supporting. It's an opportunity to demonstrate love. It's holistic. It should saturate every part of our life, this commitment that we have, this biblical love that we should be showing on a regular basis. I believe a lot of things wouldn't be happening in our world today if we were all consumed by biblical love, which means sacrificing some things that may feel the best for you or a group of people that you're from because you care so much for that other person and you're willing to be committed to how they feel and not just in the moment when it's a hot topic.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

So tying us back into Advent and this wonderful season that we're in here, what is so important about sacrificial love God gave us through the birth of Jesus?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, first and foremost, we get the example set for us. This is what love is. This is God's way of showing this giving of his son that he didn't have to do as an example of what biblical love looks like, for caring for someone so much that it drives us to some type of action. And that holds us accountable for if we dare let that L word come out of our mouth that we love someone, we love this, then that means action should come after that. So I thank the Lord that he demonstrated love in that way and has given us a guide of what his type of love looks like, and it provides salvation for all people to know that he loved humanity so much, but go out of his way to come to us in our form of the flesh and bore punishment that we deserve, even unto death, and overcome death for us. It's just so much action in that and so much love that we can see as we think about all the things that Christ endured. And it should make us, I feel like, that much more on fire right now to understand what that love is and commission ourselves daily to live it out. It's a daily cross we have to bear to love people because there's so many things in this world and so many people, so many things that people do that make us not want to love them. And I think that's the beauty of biblical love is you push yourself through those different things or those different reasons of why you probably don't want to love them. You may not like them that much in that moment. But what we see here is God demonstrates for us what love is. Now it's up to us to better know that through doing it. And you know what? As I'm thinking about it right now, that's such a motivating aspect of biblical love. And I mean, even one in this moment, I'm convicted of because it's so easy to say, you know, I'm going to do something in response to someone else. But how about we allow ourselves to be so moved by the type of love we see, you think in 1 Corinthians 13, where it gives you all these characteristics of what love is and what love isn't. You know, love is kind, love is patient, not it's not arrogant, it doesn't boast. And for us to be motivated to demonstrate that love to a point where someone else can't help but want to reciprocate that love, I feel like that's very convicting. How much am I loving my wife? How much am I loving my students? How much are friends loving one another? Where even if someone may not be acting in a manner that we feel like is worthy of our love, that we still show so many different ways that we love them to the point they were like, well, you just gonna love me no matter what. And for the wealth and the fullness of our love to motivate them to reciprocate it. Then you get so many people loving one another and then inspired by the next person to love them. I think too many times we get the feeling that, you know, the love has to be earned in some type of way. I mean, we're all sinful, and there's gonna always be something that we do that turns someone off in a certain way. But will we each individually motivate ourselves to model this love that was first modeled before us? And we were just looking at it at in Bible study last night. And Colossians 2 talks about us being, us being rooted in Christ and that being connected to being united by love. Love can unite us, and not just the believers, but you know, everyone for a believer to be on mission out into the world, whether it's at the grocery store, whether it's at work, whether it's with your friends, and to just demonstrate love in any way that they can. Man, that's an opportunity to share the truth of the gospel with someone. Just as small as, hey, you're in the grocery stores and someone drops something out of their cart and you can see, hey, they maybe not be able to bend over and get it as easily as you could. And you take that small opportunity to show that type of general love to everyone, and they're like, wow, they're like, you know, thank you. Who knows? That's an opportunity for you to build a relationship with that person or to share the truth of the gospel right there with them. So I think even our demonstration of love unites us all in Christ, and it creates so many awesome opportunities to share the truth of the gospel with folks.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

How do we see love expressed through the nativity scene?

SPEAKER_00:

The nativity scene is all about love. The scene wouldn't even exist if not for love, for God choosing to give his son because he is in such love with humanity and willing to sacrifice himself for humanity to come in the flesh. So that whole scene wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for love. So that nativity scene of Joseph, Mary, and the newlyborn Jesus, Shepherds, that was all created because of a decision to love and for our holy creator God taking that step toward us. And then it says that Mary just kind of, you know, sat there and pondered just her love in that moment just as a mother. And now then reflecting, oh man, this is the son of God, and just something that she cherished in that moment. So I mean, I think you get to see uh love there, both that love for the divine, but also just the natural love, you know, as a mom. And then honestly, it was love for it was the love of God, honestly, that the shepherds were there. They responded to this love that God first gave us. We're willing to travel miles and willing to respond to the heavenly host coming to them in the fields and them saying, We're going. So we see even there, the love has some element of action to it because they travel, wise men traveling miles to come to see the uh the newborn savior and for the shepherds running there, and then to see the sheer joy they have and them being willing to go out and shout, man, that whole nativity scene is about love, which I I think is a strong reminder for us as well, how much that love is important for us.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Well, and to your point, too, about Mary pondering, I was thinking later on in Luke when Jesus was presented at the temple, Mary and Joseph are marveling at what is being said about their son. And then what was said to Mary is this child is destined to be the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed, and a sword will pierce your own soul too. And so that pondering when he was born, I'm just wondering if that was part of the Lord's way of loving Mary, to fully love him, appreciate him, hold him, you know, that sacred moment before you know she really realizes the depth of what's gonna be going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Agree. I think that makes good, it makes me think about the song Mary Did You Know. I think it's yes and no. And I think it's for all of us for her to have those beginnings of the gravity of what just happened and what the Lord allowed her to be a part of and still on some level, still never truly know. Like all of us, the sheer majesty of everything that God has prepared for us and that we get to experience. I think a lot of times we have those married situations like, man, this just happened. I'm just a part of this, especially when we experience God's love in different ways.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Well, Mr. Evans, thank you so much for being here with us today, talking about this, and it's just such a special season. If anybody listening has any questions or just wants to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do so?

SPEAKER_00:

You have my email here, cliff.evins at benlipping.com. That's a good way to reach out to me.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Wonderful. Well, thanks again so much for being here with us today. Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_00:

Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for being with us today as we explore the beautiful promises of Advent. We hope these truths deeply inspire you throughout the week, turning the story of Christ into a personal invitation, calling you to walk daily in His hope, peace, love, and joy. We truly look forward to sharing the next step of our Advent journey with you soon.