Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the First Epistle of John, the fourth chapter:
…Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides 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. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! And it’s because of that fact that we truly can understand what John is talking about in his epistle. You see, in this world, we constantly hear the words, “God is love,” thrown out there with no real understanding. You think someone’s lifestyle is sinful, you believe homosexuality is a sin, you believe that Christ is the only true way to be saved, you believe that you believe only men should be pastors, you believe that a home should be a man and a woman together for life? Well, how dare you judge them! Aren’t you a Christian? You’re supposed to be like your God and God is love!
God is love is constantly thrown at Christians who are perceived as unloving. But, what the culture really means is that Christians are intolerant; they don’t approve of sinful lives, thinking that they should be confessed and absolved. That’s true. Christians cannot approve of sinful lives. We cannot. We must speak out. But that’s not unloving. Calling someone to repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus is the most loving thing there is to do.
We love the person who is homosexual. But we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. We love the Mormon, the Muslim, the Jew. But we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. We love the women who think God has called them to be pastors. But we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. We love those who want to upset the home and marriage, turning them on their heads. But we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
Of course, it’s easy to look at and judge the people who seem so hard up against us. It’s easy to judge the world, the culture. It’s a lot harder to judge us, too. What of the gossip in our midst? We love them, but we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. What of the liar? We love them, but we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. What of the one who bears anger in their heart? We love them, but we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. What of the one who will not abide the Word of the Lord, who believes a false theology? We love them, but we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. What of the one who hates another, even one sitting under this roof? We love them, but we call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The world is easy to hit at, but it’s harder to call one we know here to repentance. It’s even harder to forgive one who has wronged us.
But, you see, that is true love, for John tells us what love truly is. He says, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world…” You see, the love of God, the way that He is love, is that the Son was sent into the world to die for the forgiveness of sins, and raised for the promise of everlasting life. Love is the commitment of God the Father to send His Son into our flesh to die, and through that, love is the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus. Love is not tolerance. Love is not acceptance. Love is not even liking a person. Love is death.
Love is death. Love is from God, and the greatest love of all is the death of the Son. And what else does John then tell us? Have the love of God perfected in us. That means only this: love one another just as Christ loved you. Did Christ die for you? Then you are called to die for the other person. Now, this is very likely literal, especially in the face of persecution. But, the deathly-love can also be figurative, showing you what to do. Did they make you mad? Die to yourself and get over it. Did they truly do something heinous to you? Ask God to help you die to your unrepentant heart and accept their repentance. Do they live a lifestyle you don’t approve of? Die to yourself and serve them. Do they just rub you the wrong way? Die to your selfish desires and whims.
Look, the reality, and this may be hard to hear, is that you are not the most important person in the world. Your thoughts, your desires, your wishes, your life, as a Christian, should always be placed last so that you are freed to love and serve your neighbor. And I’m not very good at this. I want to serve me first, I love me first. I still behave, very often, like the spoiled five-year-old brat that I was, and still am. And so do we all. You do this. We put ourselves first. Stop it.
Die to yourself; be willing to die for others. After all, if the people, especially under this roof are not your brothers and sisters, if you would not die for them, if you would not take their burden, if you would not serve them, then perhaps we shouldn’t be here.
But, where we would not love and serve and die for those who are beloved, Christ did. Christ died for you. Christ died for when you’re being stupid. Christ died for when you’re being stubborn. Christ died for when you’re being judgy. Christ died for when you can’t accept people. Christ died for when you love yourself more than your neighbor, more than God Himself.
Christ knew that we were sinners, and yet while we still sinners, Christ died for you. Christ saved you because He knew that you could not, would not live righteously. Christ died for you, and showed to you the love that He has for you. This is why God is love, because there is no greater love than He who would lay His life down for His friends. And if Christ has died for you, and He has, then you are His friend, you are His beloved Church.
Christ has purchased and won you from death and all evil. And you shall rise into the resurrected life, living with Him, for, indeed, He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Christ’s life is now your life. And your life is now lived for the neighbor. Christ, in His perfect obedience to the Father, has freed us from having to obey the Law of God, so that now we may obey the law of God without fear of punishment. You see, we now may do toward our neighbor all the good we would want to, without fearing that we do it wrongly, that we don’t do it enough, that we sin and fail and God will punish us.
In Christ, in the perfect love of God, there is no fear. God isn’t going to come chasing after you with a whip. God isn’t going to send you to hell. God never sends repentant sinners to hell. If you are sorry, if you confess your sins, the only thing you will ever hear from God is, “I forgive you.”
If you want to be stubborn and silly and hold onto your sins, if you want to hold onto your grievances, if you want to hold onto your anger, your judgment against others, your own “righteous” anger, you are not asking God to forgive you. You’re asking Him to judge you and your motives, and you will be found wanting. But if you know that you’ve sinned, if you know that you’ve failed to show the love of Christ, the commitment unto one another, even unto death, and you desire to be saved by Christ and not your works, then this is faith, this is repentant faith. And the only thing God will ever say to you in your repentance is, “I forgive you.”
And that is the only word your pastor will say. I have no power to withhold forgiveness from those who repent. That is not love. Love is compassion in the midst of sorrow. Love is forgiveness in the face of evil. But, when one does not repent, love is binding their sin to them, giving to them that which they are asking, telling them they are not forgiven of their sin because they lack repentance.
Is this a hard word? Yes, but it is a loving word. Lack of repentance is asking for hell. And our Jesus doesn’t want anyone going there, but He is a good God, who does give people what they ask for. If they want to go to hell, He lets them. But, if they fall on Him for the forgiveness of sins, He lavishes that love of His death upon them.
You see? It is in the love of Christ, the forgiveness of Christ, the death and resurrection of Christ, that we see God does truly dwell in us. It is only because God abides in us and we in God that we are even able to desire to forgive one another. Through that forgiveness, His love is perfected in us, it comes to completion. How is this so? When the day of trouble comes, the day of persecution and death, we know that we would die for our brothers and sisters. There is no greater love that that. It shows that you bear no grievance against your brother or sister. You love them with the love of Christ.
And that is what we practice even today in the Lord’s Supper, where, truly, the Lord God comes and abides in us. He is really in us. This meal is for the brothers and sisters in faith. Here we are forgiven by Christ, receiving His true body and true blood. Here we are strengthened in the one true faith unto life everlasting. And here, we commune, we are together with our whole body of believers, and the believers around the world, and we say that we are one Church, one body, one family, and we are all loved by Christ, and we work to love one another. Here we pick up the burdens of our brothers and sisters, and here they take up ours. Here we begin to die to ourselves. Here Christ kills our sin, strengthening us in Himself. Here Christ does all the work… if only we would get out of the way.
For here, too, we may damn ourselves. Here we may eat unworthily. And what is this unworthy eating and drinking but to say, “I have hatred in my heart and I do not wish to forgive or be forgiven.” Or, “I do not love that person, and I refuse to do so.” Whatever it is, it keeps us from the forgiveness of Christ and brings hell upon our heads.
Yet, Christ, in His compassion, does not wish to do such things; He gave us His meal, as He says, for the forgiveness of all of our sins. And so here, come with repentant hearts, come acknowledging that you are sinners, come in sorrow, come in joy, come desiring to do better, come admitting you have no strength, come in sadness, come in tears, come together, come to the rail, for the Lord has great gifts for you.
Come, you sinners, come, you saints. This meal is for you for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of the faith. This is the meal I need, for I am weak, and a great sinner. But, my Lord, who has loved me, loves you, and He delivers to you His love, not His fear, at this altar. His love is His death. And He gives that to you. We need not be afraid of His meal, for His death is His love. He loved us first, giving to us His death, that we might love out of that death. This is great love, not the romantic version which isn’t real, not the idealistic version which is too Disney, not the worldly love which is all about forcing you to accept sin as righteousness, but the bloody, gory love of the commitment of God towards you, towards the death of His Son.
Can the world compare with this love? Will the world die for unrighteous men? Would anyone in the world lay down their life for the sake of the faith? No, the world is full of false prophets, unbelievers, and the spirit of antichrist. But Christ, God in human flesh, laid His life down for those who hated Him; He laid His life down for you, the sinner, that He would make you a saint, a holy one. And so we are holy. We are the Lord’s. We are His beloved little children, and He dwells in us. Does that not tell you He loves you, He cares for you, He forgives you? He is with you, now, and always, in your sin, giving you His love, His forgiveness. And He does this all, for He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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