Love like Christ loved you.

Sermon for Trinity 2, June 21, 2020

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

1 John 3:13-18  ¹³ Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.  ¹⁴ We know that we have crossed over from death to life, because we love our brothers.  The one who does not love remains in death.  ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.  ¹⁶ This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us.  And we also should lay down our lives for our brothers.  ¹⁷ Whoever has worldly wealth and sees his brother in need but closes his heart against him—how can God’s love remain in him?  ¹⁸ Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth. (EHV)

Love like Christ loved you.

Dear children of God,

            On the night He was betrayed, Jesus told His disciples, “A new commandment I give you: Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, so also you are to love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)  John didn’t forget Jesus’ words, so in his letter, he reminds Jesus’ followers that our purpose on earth is to love, so what does it mean to love? 

The most common definition of love is a tender affection and care that one feels for another.   Love is perhaps the most talked about, thought about emotion in this world, but the one in shortest supply.  We write songs and poems about love.  Movies are made and books are written with love as the theme.  Most people claim to love someone, and without love we find life difficult, heart-breaking, and lonely.  If we are honest, most of us would like to have everyone love us, but the present state of our world with its prejudices, abusive relationships, rebellious acts, self-loathing, and demonstrated hatred makes it obvious why the Lord commands us to show real love to our fellow man, yet true love is not just an emotion but committed, purposeful action to benefit the other person’s life.

St. John tells us not to be surprised “if the world hates you.”   The world’s hatred may shock us, but it shouldn’t.  You see there really are only two sides in this world: one side loves God and everything connected with Him, and the other side hates everything connected with God.  We see what the world thinks of God by what it did to His Son, our Lord Jesus, who was crucified on the cross without cause.  Jesus Himself warned that the world would hate those who follow Him when He said, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me first.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, for that very reason the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19)  There was a time when each of us stood on the side of evil, hating God and everything connected to Him, until God intervened with love for us.

Occasionally, it is hard to tell who is on which side, even which side we are on, but John tells us we can see which side we are serving by whom we love.  Do we love the things of this world, or do we focus our love on God and those who follow Him?  Our text says, “We know that we have crossed over from death to life, because we love our brothers.  The one who does not love remains in death.”   The Holy Spirit speaks bluntly here, and I am reminded of the times I haven’t loved my fellow man as well as I should.  The Lord tells us that when we don’t love our fellow believers, we don’t love Him either.  There is no way around this key truth.  The scary part is that if we don’t love our fellow Christian, we remain in the kingdom of death—Satan’s kingdom destined for hell.

So, how does our love for others stand up to the test?  As we consider our interactions with our fellow believers, how well do we love?  Have we always put the best construction on our fellow believers’ words and actions?  Have we always forgiven the hurts that we have felt from fellow believers just as Christ forgave us, which is unconditionally and completely?  Has skin color, economic background, nationality, station in life, or any other external thing limited our love for another?  Have we always had our neighbors’ best interests at heart, or do we pursue our own interests first?  Have we always encouraged the hurting with the Gospel, as well as kindly confronting those who stumble?  There are only two sides to this coin—we are either with God or against Him. 

Experience tells me that I have certainly failed, and pretty much everyone else fails at unselfish love as well.  In fact, you might find that forgiving our fellow Christians feels harder even than forgiving the unbelievers around us.  Sometimes, church members seem to have the unrealistic attitude that fellow Christians should never hurt us, as if our behaviors haven’t been stained by sin.

God wants to eliminate any thought that we can hold a grudge against a fellow believer.  He tells us, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.”  God equates a lack of love on our part with murder.  We like to think of hate as something that is actively done, but the lack of love is also hatred.  Therefore, it is hatred to condone the actions of a brother or sister wallowing in sin rather than confronting them with the truth, but likewise, it is also hatred to withhold forgiveness from one who repents.  People who display hatred against those God has loved face the prospect of eternal condemnation in hell.  Refusing or neglecting to love our brothers and sisters in the faith—God’s own dear children—is the same as active hatred for God.  And a hater is a murderer, so he is condemned.

So how do we love our brother?  The text says, “This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us.”  Jesus laid down His life so that we could be made children of God.  Now, the sinful nature loves to take credit for any love we show, but the Bible tells us, “God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)  Jesus died for us while we were still on the devil’s side!  So, if Christ was willing to lay down His life for a bunch of disobedient enemies, shouldn’t we be willing to lay down our lives for others Jesus loved?  If we truly are on Jesus’ side, if we are believers in the God who loved us enough to die for us, as we claim to be, shouldn’t we also love those He calls His own?  Shouldn’t we Love like Christ loved you?

It’s hard to be good, isn’t it?  It feels so hard to love unlovable people which, as sinners, is what we all are.  Thus, it is a good thing that we don’t have to be the power behind our love.  You see, on our own we had no ability to love.  The sinful flesh hates what is good, but Jesus laid down His life to pay for our sins.  He loved us when we were unlovable, and He sent His Holy Spirit to transform us from haters into lovers.  Isn’t that an amazing thought?  That you and I have been changed by God’s love.  John wrote, “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)  Without Jesus, we didn’t know love, but only hate.  Yet, once Jesus enters our lives, we do know love, we have love, and we have the power to love because Christ now lives in us.  

Love like Christ loved you.  Until that day God calls us home to heaven, there will be a battle raging in us between our old sinful nature and the new man of faith.  Through John, the Holy Spirit is telling us not to let the old man win.  As true believers, rescued from sin and death, we are under obligation to turn away from our sinful nature and embrace the One who loves us and fills us with His love.  Our sinful nature loves to hold on to all the hurts we feel.  Our old man would grab everything this world offers and never share.  However, connected with Jesus, the new man of faith in our hearts willingly lays down his life for his friends. 

The new man realizes, through faith in Christ, that all sins have been forgiven.  Your sins, my sins, his sins, her sins, their sins: all sins have been forgiven.  Jesus died for all people, so how could we withhold His forgiveness from any fellow believer?  Likewise, since God gives us everything we need for our lives, how could we withhold any needed thing from a fellow hurting soul?  The Spirit’s point is that anyone in whom Christ’s love dwells doesn’t withhold these things.  In fact, the new man of faith, put in us by the Holy Spirit, gladly shares what he is able with those who are in need, and the evidence of Christian charity abounds in this world impacting millions of lives.

John wrote, “Whoever has worldly wealth and sees his brother in need but closes his heart against him—how can God’s love remain in him?”  If we would withhold compassion from a fellow believer, we would be demonstrating that our hearts are locked away from Christ.  Isn’t that a scary thought?  We go bouncing through life sure that we believe in Jesus and our place in heaven is assured, but then someone hurts us, and we struggle to forgive, or they need something that we could supply, but we don’t want to share as we find ourselves in a battle of wills with our old sinful nature.

If we let our sinful nature win, we lose forever.  Thus, the writer continued, “Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth.”  He admonishes us to let Christ rule in us always—to Love like Christ loved you. 

Right now, it might seem like our world is full of unloving, unlovable, terrible people.  The world believes it is okay to try to destroy any who cause them pain, but my friends, rather than embrace the evil of the world, let’s let love for God control us and let His love shine out from us onto our fellow believers and everyone we meet. 

Jesus laid down His life, so that you and I could live and love, both here and forever.  Focus always on that wonderful Good News.  The guilt for our sins is gone, because Jesus died to pay for all of those times when you and I have failed to love.  Furthermore, Jesus lives, because He rose from the dead to share with us the love of His Father in heaven.  It is given to us to live in His love.  Now, having been made alive through faith in our dear brother, Jesus, let us live for each other.  Living, loving, forgiving, giving, and believing that Jesus really did live and die for all and for you.

Love like Christ loved you!  For our sinful nature this is impossible, but for our new, sanctified life, it is what we are redeemed and reborn to do.  Loving God, we love our brothers and sisters just as Christ loved us.  We don’t do it alone, but with Christ living in us we can’t help but live it.  My friends, live on God’s side of the fence; Love like Christ loved you.  Amen. 

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.