Who Is Love
Notes
Transcript
Love Incarnate
5.5.24 [1 John 4:7-12,16-21] River of Life (6th Sunday of Easter)
Love. It’s not just in the air. It’s everywhere. It’s in popular music of every genre and generation. Love stories and interests drive the plots of fairytales, daytime soap operas, evening drama series, big-budget action flicks, and rom-coms alike. We love the idea of love. On social media, when you see something that puts a smile on your face or warms your heart, you tap that little heart symbol. You love it.
Love is far easier to sing & write about—to communicate—than it is to demonstrate. Love, in the real world, is often painful—especially when it’s put to the test. Love, in the real world, is often costly to carry out. Love gives birth to grief just as frequently as good times. In the real world, love is just as likely to make you cry as it is to make you smile.
When we consider the ups and downs of love, we may think of romantic love first and foremost. But love is more than just romantic.
Love is a deep and abiding attachment, affection, and devotion to someone. Love in every form is costly. Platonic love, love of friends and family, requires investments of our time, talents, and treasures. Patriotic love, love of one’s homeland or country, requires devotion and in many cases real sacrifices. Love is complex & complicated.
In our reading today, the Apostle John writes a lot about love. In the verses I read, he used a form of the word “love” twenty-seven times. The two addresses of dear friends could just as easily be translated “dearly beloved”. Love is clearly the focal point of our text.
Twice John tells his dear friends, people inside the Church, (1 Jn. 4:7,16) love one another. And he ends the chapter saying: (1 Jn. 4:21) Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. At times, we might be confused what God’s Word says or calls us to do. But that’s not our issue here. God’s Word is crystal clear. We know what it says. We know what we are to do. Love one another. Especially, love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It is our divine privilege and duty to love one another. This is how (1 Jn. 4:12) God’s love is made complete in us. This is how God is made visible in this world.
So why is loving one another a thing that’s easier said than done? Why does the Church struggle so much to follow this command?
When you ask people who used to be active in the Church but aren’t anymore why they stopped attending what do they say? Why did they leave? Don’t they say: “The church is full of hypocrites”?
Think about what they are really addressing when they make that accusation. They are not saying: I stopped going to that church because the people praise God on Sunday mornings but also mutter bad words under their breath when they’re at work or behind the wheel. They are not saying: Those people say you shouldn’t steal but they don’t work that hard enough at their jobs. They are not saying: Those people say you shall have no other gods but they are obsessed with their favorite team or celebrity. They are not saying: those people say you are to rejoice always but I only ever hear them complain.
Isn’t it always about how Christian love one another? Those people said they loved God but you wouldn’t know it from how they treated me and my family. They only cared about how much money you gave. They weren’t patient, or kind. They flew off the handle. They were judgmental, gossipy, & proud. They were rude, cliquish, and selfish. They were always looking out for number one instead of one another.
When someone comes to you with a story like that, you don’t tell them: That’s impossible! People in a church would never behave like that! No one who is a Christian would ever treat you like that! You must be making it up! You must have misunderstood them! Why not?
Probably because you’ve experienced the same. You’ve been at a church or two where you felt like an outsider, instead of part of the family. You have been at a church or two where many people were prone to gossip and envy. You’ve known churches where leaders in the church were greedy, easily angered, & self-seeking. Churches where they ignored the truth when it was controversial or inconvenient. Where they tolerated bad behavior from people they felt like they couldn’t bear to lose. Why does the Church struggle to love one another?
You know what it’s like to feel the love of God growing cold when you are on the receiving end. John tells us it’s easy to talk about love. It’s challenging to actually live love out. He calls those who talk about love, but don’t live it out liars. But what does it look like on the other side?
There is a part of us that wants to limit lovelessness to hatred and then to take comfort in the fact that we don’t actively hate anyone at our church right now. Is God’s bar that low? Is God’s love that stingy?
John says: Dear friends let us love one another for love comes from God. Can we really claim we are loving our fellow Christians as God has loved us when we get so easily irritated, annoyed, impatient, or bored with our brothers and sisters in Christ?
If we only spend time with the brothers or sisters with whom we share outside interests, can we really claim to be loving one another as God has loved us? If we nurse grudges or propagate gossip, how can we claim to know and love the God of forgiveness and truth? If we think of their spiritual condition as none of my business can the love of God really be in us?
Do you ever see your fellow Christians as obstacles in your way of getting to talk to the people you really like? Do you see them as your servants, people who should do the grunt work because you’ve already put in your time? Do you think of the ones who don’t serve as you do as lazy or inconsiderate?
When they’ve been away for a while, do you welcome them back as a prodigal child? Or do you cynically wonder where they’ve been this whole time? When they wrong you, do you patiently and lovingly rebuke them? Do you root for their repentance and the chance to tell them they’re fully forgiven? Or do you write them off entirely? Do you root for them to learn the hard way or get what they’ve got coming?
Do you see how quickly your love for your fellow Christian becomes conditional? It’s conditional on how much I have in common with them, how much I enjoy their company, or how easy they are to love.
God placed no such conditions on us when he loved us first. In fact, we are told: (1 Jn. 4:10) this is love, when we didn’t love God, he loved us and demonstrated this love by sending his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. As soon as we lose sight of this, we lose sight of the power of real love. We must know and rely on God’s love for us.
This is a profound kind of devotion. We did not love God first. That is really an understatement. We were born with a deep distaste for holiness and righteousness. We felt we should do whatever we want—whatever suited our tastes. We despised his Word. We detested the idea that we should be judged or held accountable—much less punished eternally. We lived as enemies of God, thinking he and his righteous standards were the real problem.
And God knew all that. Not just what we said and did but what and how we thought about him and his Word. But God did not root for us to get what we’ve got coming. God did not hope we’d learn the hard way.
God chose to love us and demonstrate his love by giving us his beloved. His one and only Son. When God gave us his Son, he was not thinking that we would be persuaded to pursue righteousness if we saw Jesus’ wisdom or love in action.
God sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice. He sent him to die in our place for the sins that we had committed. He sent his one and only Son to suffer and die for all the things that we had done against him. We chose death and hell over God and he gave his Son to go through death and hell for us.
This is love. This love is costly. This love is painful. This love is sacrificial. And God wouldn’t have it any other way. When God tells us he loves us, he is not merely describing his warm feelings. He is telling us that he is devoted to us. He is promising his faithfulness and his forgiveness. His patience, mercy, and compassion. God’s love isn’t just some heart-shaped icon on the margins of the screen. It’s best captured in and by the cross which is the central expression of his deep and abiding love for sinners.. God chose personal suffering so that we would receive eternal salvation. This is love. This is our God.
So, dear friends, dearly loved children of God, we also ought to love one another because we are all God’s children. This is how the world will see God, when we love one another as he has loved us.
God’s love has transformed us. John puts it this way: (1 Jn. 4:17) In this world we are like Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews says: (Heb. 2:11) Both the One who makes people holy and those who are holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. And this isn’t just lip-service. Jesus loves us like a brother. He is there to rebuke us when we go wrong. He is there to encourage us when we grow weary. He does this through our fellow Christians. Remember in this world we are like Jesus.
Loving one another like Jesus doesn’t mean that we have to suffer and die for each other sins. It means being patient and kind. Being self-sacrificing, not self-serving. Making every effort to forgive and restore, not keeping some spiritual scorecard or record of wrongs. Showing love means bearing each others’ burden, praying for them and their needs, and humbly serving them. Showing love means choosing our words carefully to build each other up and to point each other in the right direction. Showing love means biting our tongues at times, and cheering each other on in other moments. When we do these things we are showing that God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. And it undoes the damage of hypocrisy. It’s hard for someone to walk away from a place where they have been loved. That’s the power of love.. We love because he first loved us. That’s not just a lovely idea. It’s the way that the world will see our God who is love. Amen.
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