MAY 17, 2009  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN.

"This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

Thus far the text.

"Love."

Now, there's a word that gets tossed around a lot. We speak of God's love for us. We speak of love for one another. "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love" is still a well-known Sunday school song. In the secular world, you'll still hear the oldies that "Love will keep us together," and "All you need is love." We hear about love a lot.

You hear about love a lot in today's Gospel lesson: By my count, our Lord mentions "love" nine times in eight verses

But what does the Lord mean when He speaks of love? It is popular in religion today to say, "We don't need to worry about doctrine as long as we've got love. As long as we love Jesus and others, those particulars don't matter very much." It's popular. But is this the Word of the Lord? Is it a loving thing to say?

Let’s begin this sermon by examining what Jesus says about love.

"Abide in My love," says Jesus. Abide: "Remain", "stay there;" not "get to" or "enter into." As Christians, begin by recognizing this about love: It doesn't start with you. You don't achieve God's love or bring it about; rather, the Lord declares that you are brought into His love by His work: "As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you." And now that He has brought you into His love, He bids you to abide there-He desires that you stay.

How are you brought in, specifically? Jesus tells the disciples in the text, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

That is what Jesus has done for you, for as St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Jesus Christ submitted to the cross, laid down His life in your place so that you might be forgiven for all of your sins. This is how you are brought into God's love-by His doing, not yours. Jesus also says in the text, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you."

Note one more statement from Jesus in the text today: "I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you."

It is by His Word that He gives you the forgiveness of sins that He won on the cross. It is by His Word that He gives you faith. It is by His Word that He saved you and brought you into His love. God's love and God's Word go together. You cannot have one without the other.

So, it is by the Word that you are brought into God's love. How do you abide there? How do you remain there? Jesus says: "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love."

If you "keep" My commandments. The English doesn't do us much good here; it sounds like Jesus is saying, "As long as you obey the rules, you belong to Me." But "keep" means to "keep hold of." "Keep" means to preserve, cling to, not let go. Therefore, to remain in His love, you cling to His commandments-you cling to His Word. Therefore, once again: God's love and God's Word go together.

The next question is, "To which commandments does Jesus refer?"

First, Jesus is referring to His Law. By His death, Jesus set you free from sin and brought you into God's love. Sin and God's love cannot abide with one another. So if you persist in sin and reject repentance, you remove yourselves from God's love. In other words, God in His love says, "Because of My love, I forgive you." If you say, "I don't want Your forgiveness," you are saying, "I don't want Your love, either." Therefore, to abide in God's love, you fear God's wrath and act according to His commandments; and when you sin, you trust in the forgiveness that Christ has won.

But God's Law is not the only commandment you are to cling to. You heard another one in last week's epistle-the verses in I John that come right before this week's reading: "And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ love one another, as He gave us commandment" (I Jn. 3:23).

What are you to believe about Jesus? Last week’s epistle told you: You are to believe that Jesus, God's only-begotten Son, has come in the flesh as God and man; and that God sent His Son into the world "to be the propitiation"-the sacrifice-"for your sins" (I Jn. 4:10). This is clearly the Gospel, for by this Word your sins are forgiven.

Therefore, you are told to keep hold of the commandment to believe in Jesus. But this is not Law. When the Lord tells you to believe in Him, He is giving you the faith He requires. By telling you about His cross, He is giving you forgiveness and faith so that you believe in Him. The command to believe in Jesus is His work for you, not yours.

And this is how you remain in God's love.

You keep hold of His Law, knowing that He still hates sin and that sin opposes His love.

You keep hold of His Gospel, because Christ has died so that you might be forgiven for your sins and remain in His love.

In short, you remain in God's love when you remain in God's Word. The two go together.

As another fruit of God's love, you also pray. You pray in the name of Jesus. But that does not mean that any old prayer is a good one if you just tack Jesus' name onto the end. Rather, according to the second commandment, to pray in Jesus' name is to pray according to His Word. You do not pray what you want, but you pray that God's will be done.

I understand that this is a lot to chew on. If nothing else, let me reiterate these points, one more time: First, God brings you into His love-and keeps you in His love-for the sake of Jesus, by means of His Word. Second, you remain in His love by holding fast to what His Word declares, no matter what others may say.

The Lord laid down His life for you in His great love, so that you might be His people and remain in His love. His Word holds true, and His Word still keeps you in His love. Therefore, rejoice to cling to His Word; and, abiding in His love, bear fruit.

Test the spirits, as last week’s epistle said, so that you know what is true and what is false.

Care for one another-foremost by telling one another what is true according to God's Word. Warn against error, even when warning comes with a cost.

Pray-in Jesus' name, according to His Word-that the Lord would continue to keep you faithful to His Word, and bring all who sin to repentance, so that all might be kept in His love.

You see, love truly prevails when God's Word prevails. In His Word, the Lord declares to you that Christ became flesh and went to the cross to die for your sins. Be not afraid: He has conquered even death and hell, and now the Conqueror abides with you. He desires that you abide in His love always. So that you might continue to abide in His love this day, He declares to you that you are forgiven for all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Christ is Risen.