The Kind of Love That Changes Us

A reflection inspired by a sermon by my late father, Rev. Alexander Campbell.

There’s a sermon of my father’s that I return to again and again — partly because it feels like sitting down with him for a quiet conversation, and partly because his words have a way of meeting me exactly where I am. The sermon is called “The Test of Love,” based on I John 4:7–21, and though it was preached many years ago, it feels just as timely and needed today.

In a world where love is often reduced to sentiment or convenience, his message gently — but firmly — calls us back to something deeper.

The Three Loves

My father opened by reminding us that in the New Testament, there isn’t just one kind of love. There are three:

• Eros — the passionate, romantic kind

• Philia — the love of friendship, family, companionship

• Agape — the sacrificial, self-giving love at the heart of God

The first two are familiar to us. They’re the kinds of love we give and receive every day in our closest relationships. But agape is different. It asks more of us. It stretches us. It’s a love that doesn’t wait to be earned, doesn’t keep score, and doesn’t retreat when loving becomes uncomfortable.

It is, in my father’s words,

“the love that sacrifices self and reaches out in compassion to those in need; at its highest, the love that defines God.”

And it’s the kind of love the writer of I John was talking about:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

When Love Becomes Real

My father always grounded spiritual ideas in real stories — the kind you carry with you long after the sermon ends.

One story was about Joseph Brisson, a tugboat worker who witnessed a man fall seventy feet into frigid water from a bridge near Portsmouth, Virginia. Brisson didn’t stop to think. He didn’t weigh the risks. He simply jumped — shoes off, wallet handed to a coworker — and swam into the icy current to hold the injured man afloat until help arrived. They spent thirty minutes in freezing water before they were rescued. Both survived.

When asked afterward why he did it, Brisson said,

“I have a family. I thought about that… but I also thought about how life is very important. I couldn’t let anything happen to him.”

Agape looks like that — instinctive compassion, courage shaped by love.

Another story came from a World War II hospital, where a Catholic sister tended to wounded soldiers. A visitor once remarked, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” The sister responded, without looking up:

“Neither would I.”

Because agape doesn’t come from reward, it comes from who we are becoming.

And then there’s Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, Mississippi — a place my father took youth groups for years. He admired their staff deeply: people who lived out love not in dramatic moments, but in quiet, persistent advocacy for the poor, the elderly, the overlooked.

• They painted houses for those who couldn’t afford repairs.

• They fought political battles to secure medical help for low-income families.

• They stood up to powerful gambling interests trying to displace vulnerable communities.

These weren’t just acts of service — they were acts of love.

Loving When It’s Hard

There is a harder edge to I John’s message, and my father didn’t gloss over it:

“Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters… cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

It’s uncomfortable scripture, because it asks us to examine the places where our love falters:

• The people who irritate us

• The ones we disagree with

• The ones who push every button

• The strangers whose stories are different from ours

• The vulnerable we overlook because helping feels heavy

We don’t have to like everyone. But we are invited — even called — to recognize the humanity in each person, and to love from that place.

My father put it simply:

“The only way we can get intimate, close-up, and have a real sense of God’s presence with us is to be loving, caring, compassionate persons.”

The Love That Abides

At the end of his sermon, my father returned to these words:

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

Agape isn’t something we muster on our own. It’s something we grow into — slowly, imperfectly, and beautifully — every time we choose compassion over convenience, tenderness over tension, courage over comfort.

It’s a love that changes us from the inside out.

May We Abide in that Love.

May we recognize it when it arrives.
And may we become people through whom that love quietly spreads.