Love to see God: Sermon on 1 John 4:7-21

God’s love and ours

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one-another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live 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 saviour of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love.

Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not been made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

1 John 4:7-21

May God bless to us the reading of his Holy Word now and forever.

Let us pray:

Father – thank you for your word. Speak to us now as we unpack what it means for you to love us so much – may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you.

Amen.

God is love.

God loves you.

Jesus loves me this I know, because the Bible tells me so…

Words that we have, I hope, been told all our lives. Words that get spoken over and over. Words that I think at times have become cheap, and have at times been used to mock Christianity.

And yet this is where the heart of our faith lies. This is the crux – the pivotal point – the place where it began and the place where it holds together.

Our world was created in love.

God reached out to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, revealing himself as the God who loves.

And we know that God so loved the world – that he gave His one and only Son, so that we might believe and have eternal life.

We know that Jesus, His Son, time and again says words like –

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

And while it begins with God’s love, the command that we are left with is,

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Paul dedicates an entire chapter in his First letter to the Corinthians – a chapter that is known and quoted often;

“If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails.

...And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Love is the basis for our faith and our hope.

But what is this love? What does it mean to say God loves us or we are to love God or love each other?

I love chocolate. I was invited to a braai and responded that I’d love to. I also love my family. There are girls who write of their undying love for band members on placards at concerts in the hope that they’re noticed.

We also have situations today where people use the word love but use it to control and manipulate and abuse.

In a world where the meaning of love has in many ways been lost we need to unpack what John means in writing that God is love.

Our reading opens with these words:

“love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Love – true love is a God thing. The foundation of love is in God Himself. This is one of the beauties of the Trinity. God within Himself is a community of love – and so all that comes out from that relationship is love.  God is the source and the definition of love. God is love. God loves as the sun shines: love expresses who God is.

And while this may sound abstract it is actually very tangible. God expresses his love in giving. He shows his love in sending Jesus. Jesus lived a life of love – he touched lepers, spoke with women, played with children. He ate in the houses of rich and poor. He rebuked injustice, turned the tables on greed and washed the feet of rough fishermen. And in the end, he died for love. You have probably heard the saying that it wasn’t nails that held Jesus to the cross, it was his love for you and me that did. He loves me so much that he didn’t want to spend eternity without me. And so he died for me. And for you.

This love extends to the fact that he prays for us now – continuously at the right hand of the Father. This love extends to the gift of His Spirit – who lives continually in us and with us.

How do I know God’s love? I read of it in His word. I believe in the truth of the cross. I experience it through His Spirit.

This is a real thing.

God’s love is a truth more basic and reliable than the ground we walk on and the air we breathe.

And it’s so important to realise that because God IS love, that does not depend on our initiative or on our worthiness. We don’t have to reach out to God or even believe in God in order to be loved. We don’t have to clean up our act before God can love us. We don’t have to measure up to some standard in order to be lovable. No, God showers love on us whether we deserve it or not. And if we were honest with ourselves who of us could ever deserve such amazing, immeasurable love?

And this is something we struggle to fully grasp, I struggle to truly grasp. We are consistently told and taught and bombarded with messages saying that it’s all about what you deserve, or earn, or achieve that give you worth. And yet God’s love has nothing to do with that at all. There is a parable that Jesus tells where a land owner goes out in the morning to find workers for his field, and finding some he agrees that if they work for him that he pays them a denarius – a gold coin. He goes out later and finds more, again in the afternoon finds more men, and simply tells them he’ll pay them what is right. He again goes and finds more men waiting around in the early evening and invites them to work too. At the end of the day he pays the men starting with those who had only worked one hour, and he pays them a denarius, and he pays the same right up until those who had been working all day. Those who had come first then complain against this owner, but he replies, “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’”

Our world cannot understand such generosity or such love because it isn’t of this world, it’s of God.

God is the source of love.

What then is our response? It is twofold.

Firstly we learn to abide in His love.

We need to know ourselves as beloved and as secure in His love. We need to be able to draw strength and comfort and confidence from the fact that His love for us is unchanging.

The phrase Jesus uses to describe this – is “remain in me”. He says in John 15, just before he leaves the disciples,

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

In other translations the word “abide” is used. And interestingly it’s the same word used when Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms, or mansions” – the word here is actually “abiding places” and when he talks about the Holy Spirit dwelling with us, he is also speaking here about abiding.

Abiding or remaining can also be then the places where we are most deeply at home. Be at home in my love. Be secure and comfortable in it. Surround yourself with it. Know it deep in your soul, in the place from where all your decisions and emotions come from. And remain in it.

Our reading today then is saying the more fully and completely we know God, the more the immense reality of God’s love dawns on us. When we open ourselves to the warmth and light of God’s love, we will find that even our deepest, darkest secrets and the ugliest parts of ourselves are not beyond God’s reach. Nothing in us is so broken or so filthy that God is unwilling or unable to touch it and transform it. God embraces us as we are, loves us as we are, and works in us to make us clean and whole and new. Understanding then that we are upheld, surrounded and enfolded by such love, we reach the line that tells us – that perfect love drives out all fear because we have no doubt that whatever may come, even death itself – will come into a space that is already occupied by God’s love – so we do not need to be afraid. We can at all times approach our Father in confidence and in love.

The second call then is to overflow into others.

In verse 19 we read

We love because he first loved us.

Note carefully how this reads. There is no ‘should’ or ‘must’ written in this line. As one of the commentators writes

“It is not "we ought to love because he first loved us" as if God's love were the ground for a new imperative. It is "we can love because he first loved us." God's love is the ground for a new possibility.

While any human analogy falls short it’s like a child who grows up knowing love, is thus able to give love and affection, while a child who has known only apathy or rejection responds with fear and suspicion and withdrawal.

We have known a love that is undeserved and generous and merciful.

Thus we are able to give love that is undeserved and generous and merciful.

In all the commands we receive it always starts with God. In the passage we started earlier in John 15, the vine and the branches – it is because the branches stay attached to the vine that they bear fruit – that they are able to show love. Branches don’t force themselves to bear fruit… it’s not something they can create from themselves – it happens naturally because they remain attached. Jesus says in this section;

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

As he finishes washing His disciples feet he says – As I have done to you, so you do to others.

Even the great commandments begin with loving God, and then loving others.

As I have loved you – so you too must love one another.

“We love because he first loved us.”

And something struck me as incredible as I read our passage and this is the thought I want to leave with you this morning. There is a line in verse 17 after saying that when we live in love we live in God and God lives in us… it then says we have confidence

“because in this world we are like him”

When we love one another, we represent God to the world. Not because we are all powerful or all knowing. But by allowing the love that God has showered on us to overflow, we make this divine love real and visible in the ordinary lives of ordinary people. God invites us to let Jesus live in us, so that through us Jesus can continue to welcome outcasts and touch untouchables and heal the broken. When God’s unimaginable, limitless love comes alive in us, we become the real presence of God in the world.

The world sees God in us. We love, to see God at work.

And so when people wonder where God is, or why God seems distant or silent… remember that he lives in you, and His love flows through you. When the believers at Antioch, our theme passage in Acts tells us, were called Christians. It’s because they were being Jesus to the world. Little Christs.

  We have the incredible opportunity to be the same.

I pray that you go into this week holding in your head and your heart the wonder of this love. That you will learn to abide, to make yourself at home in His love. And that you will overflow, that it will spill over simply because a love this amazing cannot be contained.

And that through this – when people see us – they will see God, because we will be like Him.

Let us pray.

   

The Last Week of Jesus Series: The True Confession (Mark 15)

When it comes to the crucifixion – I believe that the most important thing we can hear today – is the Gospel account – that we can listen to Scripture telling the story and letting it speak for itself.

And so we are going to be reading almost the whole of Mark chapter 15.

We have up until now been following Mark’s account of the last week with Jesus. We have celebrated his arrival in Jerusalem – and each day have witnessed his teaching, his authority, and his quiet time spent with his disciples and those he loved. Last night we meditated on the terrible suffering Jesus went through as he struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he allowed a dear friend to betray him, as he watched those he loves, abandon him and deny him.

We now come to the climax – this is it. Today is the day that the greatest love the world has ever seen, gets poured out, offered up and given for you and for me. And so we will read from the Gospel of Mark chapter 15 – from verse one. 

15 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

² “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.

“You have said so,” Jesus replied.

³ The chief priests accused him of many things. ⁴ So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”

⁵ But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

⁶ Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. ⁷ A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. ⁸ The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.

⁹ “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate,¹⁰ knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. ¹¹ But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

¹² “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

¹³ “Crucify him!” they shouted.

¹⁴ “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

¹⁵ Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

The Soldiers Mock Jesus

¹⁶ The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. ¹⁷ They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. ¹⁸ And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” ¹⁹ Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. ²⁰ And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

²¹ A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. ²² They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). ²³ Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. ²⁴ And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

²⁵ It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. ²⁶ The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the jews.

²⁷ They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. ^[28] [a]29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days,³⁰ come down from the cross and save yourself!” ³¹ In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! ³² Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

The Death of Jesus

³³ At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.³⁴ And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).^[b]

³⁵ When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”

³⁶ Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.

³⁷ With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

³⁸ The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. ³⁹ And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Taticus, the Roman historian, states concerning Judea during the whole life and ministry of Jesus; His trial, His crucifixion and His resurrection, one sentence "nothing of significance happened in that time during those days." One of the greatest historians of the era could say that nothing of importance happened in Judea when Jesus walked the earth & gave His life for mankind. He missed it – completely. The central point of human history was recorded as “nothing of significance”. 

And while there may be many many reasons why this event may have passed him by, I sometimes wonder if we miss the significance of today. If we leave here this morning, or on Sunday morning and when people ask – how was Church or how was your weekend… we respond saying – “Ja fine”… nothing of consequence happened here really… nothing significant. We fall into the trap of getting used to this. We talk casually about the cross and Jesus sufferings. Sometimes we don’t understand what the cross was really like – the fact that even to this day it is still the most heinous and cruel and degrading form of execution ever devised. Sometimes we have simply heard the story too many times – we have become immune to its power and its horror and its beauty.

In the story we have read though – there is someone who I believe could teach us about the significance of what has happened. And that is the Centurion. If anyone could shrug his shoulders at the events of that day it would have been him. As a Roman soldier crucifixions would have been common place, they were the form of execution used as a scare tactic in order to maintain control in the empire. At one time and a couple of years before, around 150 men were crucified on the same day. Crucifixions were part and parcel of this man’s job as he served his time in Judea.

So the horror and the cruelty of it probably passed him by. He was hardened by the time and the way of life to the point that this was simply another day at the job.

But something was different on this day. Something that changed everything for this man.

What was it?

Was it Jesus’ innocence proclaimed by Pilate or his silence in the face of false accusations?

Was it the way in which he took the spit of the Roman guard on his face and instead of retaliating looked at these men with compassion?

Was it the statement he kept hearing in mockery – and that he read above Jesus head “The King of the Jews”… and his welcoming of the one criminal into his eternal kingdom?

Was it his pronouncement of forgiveness, his care of his mother – his god-forsaken cry of abandonment?

Was it the terror of the earthquake and the darkness?

Whatever the Centurion saw, it was clear to him that this was no ordinary man – this death; this cross; this suffering – this was different… and in horrified realisation, he proclaims his own guilt by saying – This is the Son of God… whom I have just crucified.

Can you imagine the agony and the fear involved in knowing that you played a part in that? That you have not only innocent blood on your hands, but the blood of Almighty God.

The realisation this morning – is that we do. Each of us here are the reason that Jesus went to the cross. Each of us here hold the nails in our hands. Let his blood be on our heads and on our children is what the crowd cried out that day – and it hasn’t changed since then.

And so the truest confession we can ever make when looking at the cross is – truly there hangs the son of God… and I crucified him.

In the 1976 film "Jesus of Nazareth," directed by Franco Zeffirelli, Jesus was played by the British actor Robert Powell and another man by the name of Ernest Borgnine had a small but crucial role as the centurion whose servant Jesus healed and who (as done with artistic licence) was later present at the crucifixion. Borgnine recounts the story of his scene at the cross as follows:
“When it came time for my scene during the crucifixion, the weather was chill and gray. The camera was to be focused on me at the foot of the cross, and so it was not necessary for Robert Powell, the actor who portrayed Jesus, to be there. Instead, Zeffirelli put a chalk mark on a piece of scenery beside the cameraman. "I want you to look up at that mark," he told me, "as if you were looking at Jesus."
I hesitated. Somehow I wasn’t ready. I was uneasy.
"Do you think it would be possible for somebody to read from the Bible the words Jesus said as He hung on the cross?" I asked.
I knew the words well from the days of my childhood in an Italian-American family in Connecticut, and I’d read them in preparation for the film. Even so, I wanted to hear them now.
"I will do it myself," Zeffirelli said. He found a Bible, opened it to the Book of Luke, and signaled for the camera to start rolling.
As Zeffirelli began reading Christ’s words aloud, I stared up at that chalk mark, thinking what might have gone through the centurion’s mind.
That poor Man up there, I thought. I met Him when He healed my servant who is like a son to me. Jesus says He is the Son of God, an unfortunate claim during these perilous times. But I know he is innocent of any crime.
"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." The voice was Zeffirelli’s, but the words burned into me -- the words of Jesus. (Luke 23:34-46)
Forgive me, Father, for even being here, was the centurion’s prayer that formed in my thoughts. I am so ashamed, so ashamed.
"Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise," said Jesus to the thief hanging next to Him.
If Jesus can forgive that criminal, then He will forgive me, I thought. I will lay down my sword and retire to my little farm outside of Rome.
Then it happened.
As I stared upward, instead of the chalk mark, I suddenly saw the face of Jesus Christ, lifelike and clear. It was not the face of Robert Powell I was used to seeing, but the most beautiful, gentle visage I have ever known. Pain-seared, sweat-stained, with blood flowing down from thorns pressed deep, His face was still filled with compassion. He looked down at me through tragic, sorrowful eyes with an expression of love beyond description.
Then His cry rose against the desert wind. Not the voice of Zeffirelli, reading from the Bible, but the voice of Jesus Himself: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
In awe I watched Jesus’ head slump to one side. I knew He was dead. A terrible grief welled within me, and completely oblivious of the camera, I started sobbing uncontrollably.
"Cut!" yelled Zeffirelli. The women playing the roles of Mary and Mary Magdalene were crying, too. I wiped my eyes and looked up again to where I had seen Jesus. He was gone.
Whether I saw a vision of Jesus that windswept day or whether it was only something in my mind, I do not know. It doesn’t matter. For I do know that it was a profound spiritual experience and that I have not been quite the same person since. As that centurion learned two thousand years ago, I too have found that you simply cannot come close to Jesus without being changed.”

This morning we come together and we look at the Cross. We look at a man hanging there in pain and agony. And when we look at our own hands – we will see his blood on them.

But the beauty in the midst of the horror is this – that while we gaze on the one who hangs there we can hear these words.

Father forgive them – they do not know what they are doing.

And we can know that there is forgiveness for us.

Today you shall be with me in paradise

And we can know that there is eternal life promised for us.

It is finished.

No longer do I need to hold onto guilt or shame or bitterness or hopelessness. The darkness is over – we look forward to the son rising on Easter Sunday to know the glorious truth – that the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And as we feel the earth shake, as we watch the curtain torn in two – we can know that God’s heart broke for us. He loved us so much – that he gave his one and only son… not to condemn the world – but to save the world through him.

I don’t know what it is that will change your heart. But this morning I invite you to look upon the King of the Jews, as he hangs on the cross. I want you to go through the story – hear the words, watch as he takes on the sins and filth of this world – and experience a love that is greater than the burden he carries and the pain he bears.

And ensure that you don’t leave here without encountering him. Don’t leave believing nothing of significance took place. Stand alongside the Centurion and believe in the wondrous truth. This is the son of God – who takes away the sins of the world.