Faith, Hope, and Love. This series is leading up to the famous ?love? passage from 1 Corinthians 13. Next week, we will explore 1 Corinthians 13 and how that moves us into an even deeper relationship with God and one another. But Today, we continue in our 4th week on love- we started love with the question ?what is your source?? and then examined our heartbeat and how we are moving and pumping in our lives and the world, and moved from the source being God and the heart giving life, to going out into the world, because God so loved the world, as he heard Luther share his experience in the Philippines. Today, we move into a deeper understanding of how God loves us and because of God?s love, we love one another. In many ways, this sounds so simple, but it might not be. In our passage for today, John?s words should stretch us into a deeper relationship with God and one another. I invite you to pray with me over the sermon ?Love God and Love One Another.?
One of the definitions I have recently come across for love is from John Townsend. He defines love as ?seeking and doing the best for another (Loving People by John Townsend pg. 19).? I think this falls in-line with our passage for today. And how people have the deepest desire to be loved. I think from the time we came out of the womb, we have wanted to be loved by someone. The first people to typically love us are our parents. We come out of the womb screaming for attention, comfort, and love from those around. And then at the end of life, we want to be surrounded by those we have screamed at and provided comfort to?and are now receiving comfort from?our loved ones. And in between the beginning and the end, we try to figure out love. Along the way, there is a game that children and teenagers play to try to figure out love. It involves a question and some checkmarks?and a note. The question normally at the top of the page is ?Do you like me?? (This idea came form watching the video ?Check the Box? from The Skit Guys, https://skitguys.com/videos/item/check-the-box.)
Check yes or no. Did you ever do that? Then as the note was passed to the person that you desperately needed to know if they liked you?and you waited with great anticipation and anxiety to see what the person would write you back. Would they say yes? Would they say no? Would they say anything at all? It is a good thing that God?s love is different. We don?t have to wait for God to check yes or no. God has already checked yes for all of us. For God?s love is first and last and is utterly constant through out the long and unmarked middle. Even when we are wondering if God still loves us.
Our passage this morning is really a love letter from 1 John 4:7-21. It is one of those passages that shares so much that it could be hard to follow. So we are going to break it apart. I am also going to do this a little differently than I have done before. I have tried to take a passage that is very circular and make it more linear. In addition, the key points in this passage are said multiple times, meaning they are really, really important and John wants us to truly understand them. Many times the key verse that is shared is vs. 19 ?We love because God first loved us.?? And what a gift that is! But even better, God calls us his beloved.
(Much of the information in this sermon is from the great writers for the reference book called ?Feasting on the Word.? It was from Year B, Volume 2, pages 466-471.)
?Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (vs.7).?
Beloved?John speaks love to his beloved. Isn?t that beautiful? We are God?s beloved. Just by reading this verse, we get to see who God is, how God chooses to manifest God?s self, how we are strengthened and empowered to do God?s work, and that God?s work is for us. In the original Greek language the word love is agape. Agape is the love that gives without expecting a return of anything, it is a love that is sacrificial. What a gift!
We love because he first loved us (vs. 19).
Some people think that wrath and judgment are the nature of God. But really, love is the true nature of God. And God will go to any length to have a relationship with all of humanity. All because God loved us first.
God?s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (vs. 9-10).
Since God?s nature is LOVE, is given to humans in human form-in the person of Jesus, who is the Son of God. God loves us and sent the Son, a person, as the word of love, the sign of love, the living love of God given in the flesh to human beings. It is as if God made the largest deposit into our banks and filled it so much that we cannot see the end.
God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them (vs. 15-16).
I think the word ABIDE is one of my favorite words. Meaning to remain, continue, stay, dwell, reside-as ones home. That is what it means that God abides in us-God has made us God?s home. God is in our favor apart from our ability to reciprocate; God?s love is not based on any responses we offer. We know God is love because we are a part of a community that has seen for ourselves that God acts in love. We are then invited to abide in God and make God our home.
I believe I witness that every week, every day where I have a conversation with the members and friends of Wintergarden. This community offers itself as an act of love to one another and in the community as you are all able. It is a gift to see you share God?s love.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world (vs. 17).
We are to be as God is in the world. In doing this, we are embracing God?s love for us and living God?s love out in the world. Seeing love as obedience removes the fear of punishment for disobedience. For me, it is very freeing to hear these words.
As I read this verse, I almost got chills.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love (vs. 18).
Perfect love-God?s love- casts out fear. There is no love in the face of fear. So if this is true, then love is the abandonment of self- interest and self-concern, love cuts away at everything that affects us as fear. It flips punishment on its head. Meaning that love that casts out fear means to love is an act of courage. Now I think we all have fears. But how amazing would it be if we fully rested in God, as God already rests in us, with a perfect love towards God, and then those fears would disappear, they would be cast out.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love (vs.8). If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit (vs. 12b-13).
God is love. God lives in us. With God living in us, God is active in us. For me, this reminds me that love is not a concept or a feeling, or something to be known just abstractly. Love is an action, a verb, that is lived out concretely. For it is not enough to remember Jesus?s self-sacrifice, to think about it, or even to be moved by it. We must live it. If we know the God of love, then we are live out the love of God. For we are to act lovingly, even if imperfectly because God has given us of the Spirit.
Those who say, ?I love God,? and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen (vs. 20).
This is another section of the scripture that has caused much reflection this week. Think about it. If Jesus taught anything through his life, witness, crucifixion, and resurrection, he has taught us that love is not simply an inner assurance of God?s abiding presence, BUT expresses itself in concrete acts of love, even toward those who betray, deny, and kill him. Jesus showed us the importance of living a life lived in love, even in the face of hatred. Hate is such a strong word. But if we hate, this scripture passage says you cannot say, ?I love God.? Strong words to think and pray about this week.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another vs.11).
So if God loves us, we must love one another in the same way. And this passage reinforces that there is no love of God if there is no love of neighbor. It is as if we are now being asked to use that huge deposit that God made and love one another with that deposit.
The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also (vs. 21).
And this passage wraps up with reminding us of the two greatest commandments.? ?To love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself.? 1 John shows us how these commands are tied together. Not only must we obey them both; it is impossible to obey the first without also obeying the second.
For love itself transforms us. Because we are loved by God, we become children of God. Love is first, before any claim on our part that we are worth being loved. Remember, we don?t have to earn God?s love. God already loves us and proved that we were loved through Jesus. Our love for others should follow the same pattern as God?s love for us. Like God, we are to love the one who is unloving and unresponsive. It is easy for us to love those who love in return. We are commanded to love the one who is unloving, angry, and hurtful. Only then do we see for ourselves what God-as-love is really like. When the love of God flows through us and transforms another life, changing that unloving person into someone who also has been born anew of love, then we know God.
Beloved friends, God is love. We love because God first loved us. So imagine if we sent God a letter with it having a check box on it for Yes/No. For all of us, God would check YES. God would check ?yes? so fast that God wouldn?t even need to think about it. But if God sent you a letter and asked for you to check Yes/No, how would you check the box? If you check ?yes? then are you living this our every day with all people that you encounter, even those people in your lives who have been unloving, angry, and hurtful?
God is love, the agape kind of love that gives sacrificially. Jesus died for us as an act of agape and we are to agape one another. God?s love defines us. Love is evidenced by what God has done on our behalf. So as you think about how you would check that box, I pray that as we leave this place today, we allow for God?s love to transform us in our lives, our relationship, our church and our world. God knows, it needs to happen. Amen.