1 John 4:7-12
My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
We are back in the First Letter of John. I touched briefly on 1st John a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t want to go into it too deeply since this will be one of the non-Pauline letters we study this summer in our Summer Sermon Series and we’ll get a lot more detail then. Suffice it to say that this comes from a church that was dealing was internal schisms. Hold that in mind as we hear and consider the words of today’s reading.
Did you notice that this reading is all about ‘love’? I hope you noticed -- if you didn’t you must have been asleep, because the word ‘love’ – in various forms – shows up sixteen times in this brief bit of scripture. ‘Love’ pops up a lot in all the “John” writings, whether the gospel or the three letters. Remember, even if they weren’t written by the same person, they most likely all came from within the same community of believers.
And that community was apparently in the midst of some internal turmoil, because the writer is at pains to insist that they are still obligated to love each other – turmoil or no turmoil. And the writer, whoever he or she is, continues to remind us we do not love because the people around us are all so loveable and agreeable – we love because God first loves us.
Jesus loved everyone with whom he came in contact. He certainly didn’t always agree with them all – in fact, scripture goes to some pains to show us his occasional conflicts - but even in conflict he did not cease loving. His loving was often tinged with sadness because he knew that it was rejected and the recipient would never know the joy and peace of accepting that they were, indeed, loved. Before we can love, we must first accept that we are loved.
If we are going to call ourselves followers of Christ, then we have no choice – no choice – except to love, as well. As writer Kathryn Matthews puts it: Love is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Love is the measure of our faithfulness.
I don’t know why it is so difficult for many of us to accept being loved – to accept the reality of a God who loves me. We have trouble with our ability to love others because we can see their brokenness, but our larger problem stems from our fear that we are as broken and unlovable as everyone else.
If we were to read on a little further past our assigned reading today, we would come to these verses:
Did you notice that this reading is all about ‘love’? I hope you noticed -- if you didn’t you must have been asleep, because the word ‘love’ – in various forms – shows up sixteen times in this brief bit of scripture. ‘Love’ pops up a lot in all the “John” writings, whether the gospel or the three letters. Remember, even if they weren’t written by the same person, they most likely all came from within the same community of believers.
And that community was apparently in the midst of some internal turmoil, because the writer is at pains to insist that they are still obligated to love each other – turmoil or no turmoil. And the writer, whoever he or she is, continues to remind us we do not love because the people around us are all so loveable and agreeable – we love because God first loves us.
Jesus loved everyone with whom he came in contact. He certainly didn’t always agree with them all – in fact, scripture goes to some pains to show us his occasional conflicts - but even in conflict he did not cease loving. His loving was often tinged with sadness because he knew that it was rejected and the recipient would never know the joy and peace of accepting that they were, indeed, loved. Before we can love, we must first accept that we are loved.
If we are going to call ourselves followers of Christ, then we have no choice – no choice – except to love, as well. As writer Kathryn Matthews puts it: Love is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Love is the measure of our faithfulness.
I don’t know why it is so difficult for many of us to accept being loved – to accept the reality of a God who loves me. We have trouble with our ability to love others because we can see their brokenness, but our larger problem stems from our fear that we are as broken and unlovable as everyone else.
If we were to read on a little further past our assigned reading today, we would come to these verses:
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. [1 John 4:17-19]
We want to love. We recognize that as believers it is our calling to love – to love not only our friends and family but our enemies. And yet, we are afraid. and this is the true problem because the opposite of love is not, as might seem obvious, hatred. The opposite of love is fear.
First, we are often afraid to trust that God loves us – not just some blanket all-of-humankind-us, but the very specific me that is each one of us. We often don’t love ourselves, so how can we believe God loves us?
Our letter-writer today has an answer for that: When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry. Eventually, we simply have to take a giant leap of faith, past all our fear, and believe, trust, that we are loved – and then, as the writer tells us -- there is no room in love for fear because love banishes fear.
We are loved. God is not going to become something God isn’t just because we have trouble believing in God's reality. We are loved and there is nothing we can do about it. Every sunset and moonrise, every newborn’s first smile, every flower that insists on growing up through a slab of concrete, every smile from a stranger, every sunrise, every rainbow – each one tells us that we are loved.
When we are loved, we are allowed to love others in return. Not just the ones who are already easy to love but the often broken, messy others who – like us – are the beloved creation of a God who is love.
And because we are loved... we are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love.
Amen.
First, we are often afraid to trust that God loves us – not just some blanket all-of-humankind-us, but the very specific me that is each one of us. We often don’t love ourselves, so how can we believe God loves us?
Our letter-writer today has an answer for that: When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry. Eventually, we simply have to take a giant leap of faith, past all our fear, and believe, trust, that we are loved – and then, as the writer tells us -- there is no room in love for fear because love banishes fear.
We are loved. God is not going to become something God isn’t just because we have trouble believing in God's reality. We are loved and there is nothing we can do about it. Every sunset and moonrise, every newborn’s first smile, every flower that insists on growing up through a slab of concrete, every smile from a stranger, every sunrise, every rainbow – each one tells us that we are loved.
When we are loved, we are allowed to love others in return. Not just the ones who are already easy to love but the often broken, messy others who – like us – are the beloved creation of a God who is love.
And because we are loved... we are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love.
Amen.
RSS Feed