We Living Ones Love.
The Second Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 John 3:13-18
In Christ Jesus, Love incarnate, who demonstrated God’s love for the world through His sinless life and sacrificial death, and who calls His people to follow His example of love, dear fellow redeemed:
There are different ways we express the fact that we are alive: “I’m breathing.”—“I’m upright.”—“I have a pulse.”—“I’m still above ground.”—“The ol’ ticker is still working.” Our reading for today gives another proof of our being alive, but it is talking about something more than physical life. The apostle John writes, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.”
The “brothers” that John is referring to are fellow believers. Although it sounds like John is saying that it is our love for the brothers that has brought us “out of death into life,” this is not the case. John makes this clear a couple verses later when he writes, “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.” We “know love,” because we have seen the love of Jesus.
The love of Jesus was completely sacrificial. He came, as He said, “not to be served but to serve” (Mar. 10:45). Of all the people who could have demanded the love of others, it was Him. “For by him all things were created” (Col. 1:16), and “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). He is the only-begotten Son of God the Father from all eternity. We would not exist apart from Him. When He took on human flesh and revealed Himself through His gracious words and works, He should have received nothing but love, honor, and respect.
At the same time, His love was not contingent on receiving what He deserved. Whether or not His words were listened to, whether or not His works were praised, whether or not He was thanked for His miracles and blessings, He still loved, like the love we see from the master of the house who invited “the poor and crippled and blind and lame” to his banquet (Luk. 14:16-24). Jesus loved the sinners around Him all the way to the cross, where He lovingly carried all their sins to make payment for them. He came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mar. 10:45).
What He has done, that is what we are called to do. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples and told them, “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (Joh. 13:15). Then He added that it is love that would set His disciples apart from the world. He said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (v. 35).
Jesus is not referring to a love that will come from deep down in our heart, as though all we need to do is look inside to find it or try harder. He is referring to a love that comes from God Himself. As John wrote later in his epistle, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1Jo. 4:7). That tells us there is a difference between the love of the world and the love of God.
In fact, we learn from the Bible that those “loves”—worldly love and godly love—are opposed to each other. The world has a warped understanding of love. “Love” might be defined as “the acting out of my passions.” It is “doing the things I find fulfilling.” The “love” that the world embraces hardly ever has a sacrificial component. It is about what is good for me more than it is what is good for you.
It is no wonder, then, that the world chafes under the Bible’s definition of love. God says that nothing can be loving if it goes against His Ten Commandments. The Commandments show us the shape of love and the focus of love. They do not direct us inward toward a love of self. They direct us outward toward love for God and neighbor.
Therefore, we say, it can’t be love when we dishonor or disrespect parents or the governing authorities (4th). It can’t be love when we do harm to others or wish harm on them in our hearts (5th). It can’t be love when we act on our sexual passions and desires outside of marriage (6th). It can’t be love when we have the world’s goods and see a brother in need, yet close our heart against him, as our reading says. Anything that does not agree with God’s holy law cannot be loving, since “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).
The world, of course, disagrees, and it doesn’t disagree mildly. It says that you should indulge your sinful passions, do whatever you want to do, put yourself first. The world doesn’t take kindly to these things being questioned or challenged by we who hold to the true Word of God. The effect is as John says, “the world hates you.” He is saying nothing different than the Lord Jesus who said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (Joh. 15:18-19).
Love for God means hatred from the world. You cannot have it both ways. Jesus says you cannot enjoy the love of the world and the love of God. The unbelievers of the world walk around dead in their sins, like the people in the Holy Gospel who thought their worldly pursuits were more important than the banquet of salvation. They do not know the love of God. They are unable to love as He loves. So it is no surprise when we are the recipients of their hatred. Hatred comes naturally to the unbelievers of the world, just as it once came naturally to us.
But now we are alive in Christ. We have been buried and raised with Him through Baptism. We have been grafted into Him, which means that life and love flow from Him to us like nourishment from a vine to its branches. Through these branches—through us—God produces fruits of love for the benefit of others. John describes what that love looks like. Just as Jesus laid down His life for us, “we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” If any brother has a need, we should do our best to help and supply him. Believers in Jesus should never be accused of being “all talk.” We show our love by our words and our actions.
But what if we don’t? What if we fall into the same snares and sins of the unbelievers? And of course we have. We have played the part of murderers by hating a brother or sister in Christ. Perhaps it was hatred toward a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or a member of the congregation. We wanted them to be hurt like we hurt. We wanted them to suffer like we suffered. And there have been times when we saw a fellow Christian in need, but we didn’t want to trouble ourselves to help. Or we told ourselves that surely someone else would step up who had more resources and more time.
When these behaviors have described us, then we were no better than the unbelievers of the world. Then this indictment is true for us: “Whoever does not love abides in death.” It is death—lifelessness—when we fail to love. Christians who do not love are like lungs that don’t breathe or hearts that don’t beat. We do not represent the God of all love when we are selfish or judgmental or too proud to lift a finger to help those we think are below us.
If the wheels in your brain are turning right now, remembering when you did not love, but then trying to justify those times, that is death in you. But if you recall those times of weakness and sin, and you are sorry for them, that is life in you. St. Paul writes, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
“Putting to death the deeds of the body,” means repenting of your sins and trying to avoid them in the future. Every one of us here has sins to repent of, sins of hatred and selfishness. The Holy Spirit leads us to recognize these sins and hand them over to the Father. This remorsefulness and repentance is a clear sign of life. It is a sign that you are not dying along with the loveless world. You are alive in Him who loved perfectly.
His love for you does not change, even though you have sinned, even though you have not always loved like you should. The Son of God accepted the punishment for all those sins in your place, so that they are not charged against you anymore. His love for you from cradle to cross covers the multitude of your sins. He gave Himself to save you.
The Holy Spirit gives you the faith to believe this. And He continues working through the Word and Sacraments to strengthen your faith and renew your love toward others. You come here bringing your sin and guilt, but you leave holding His grace and forgiveness, with plenty to share with everyone around you.
That is what we do. We pass on what we have received. We Living Ones Love. We do not lose anything by loving. We only gain, like honeybees transferring pollen from flower to flower, or like a flame being passed from one candle to another. Just as the love of God has come to us from others, so we share this love, not just “in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(woodcut of the poor, the blind, and the lame being invited to the banquet from the 1880 edition of The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation)
(No audio recording is available for this sermon.)