Abide
in Love
1 John 4:1-10 & John 15:9-17
Eastertide 6 (May 21, 2006)
Pastor S. D. Spencer
1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not
believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because
many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit
of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is
of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit
of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in
the world. 4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He
who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world.
Therefore they speak as of the world,
and the world hears them. 6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is
not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit
of error. 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know
God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that
God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through
Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins
John 15:9 " As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. 14 "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 "These things I command you, that you love one another
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God and this congregation to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in holy matrimony. This is an honorable estate, which God Himself has instituted and blessed, and by which He gives us a picture of the very communion of Christ and His bride, the Church. God has both established and sanctified marriage and has promised to bless therein all who love and trust in Him and who seek to give Him their faithful worship and service, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Perhaps there is no greater testimony of
love in our society than the union of man and woman into holy matrimony.
Most of us have at one time or another have been in love. One of the
greatest joys of love is realized when we come to the conclusion that we want to
spend the rest of our life with that one special person. As the years pass for
the one blessed with a true and genuine marriage, love grows deeper and deeper;
the two become inseparable. The verse that comes to mind for many Christians
concerning this phenomenon is Genesis 2:24;
"For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh." Many
in our society today, look at marriage as some type of contract, one of specific
duration or condition. From such thoughts stem phrases like: As long as I'm
happy I'll remain married; or as long as he provides a good income I'll remain
married or even as long as she is attractive I'll remain married.
On Saturday April 15, 1978 a young longhaired bearded motorcycle rider sat patiently on the steps of a Lutheran University waiting for his date. She had been called away to the phone to speak with her x-boyfriend. As he waited he noticed posted on the wall a copy of the Dean's list. Passing time he read the list of student's names, he chuckled quietly imagining each qualifier with horned rim glasses and greasy un-kept hair. At the top of the list -It was alphabetical- was the first qualifier a Miss Anderson. Without a doubt, a 78-pound long black greasy haired girl with horned rim glasses that must have lenses that resemble the bottom of a coke bottle. It was at that moment a young woman approached him, shyly she inquired of his purpose for being on the campus. As it turned out, the dorms had been burglarized just a few days prior. The faculty had asked that all students to be on the lookout for any suspicious looking characters. Very little spoken exchange occurred that day. 2 weeks later another small conversation took place between the two. Love is an interesting thing. If was from those two short exchanges that this young man knew, without a doubt, she was the one. This was the woman he would wed. This was the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. Did she share those thoughts? I doubt it. He boldly told my best friends fiancé' that he had found the woman he would wed. He stated it without any doubt or reservation. And indeed they were married a year later on August 4th, 1979. This year that couple will celebrate 27th wedding anniversary. That couple still talks of the commitment of being married for a lifetime. For them marriage is not a contract it is the two becoming one flesh talked about in Genesis. By the way that woman is sitting in one our pews today; her name is Denise Spencer, she is my loving wife and I was that character sitting on those steps. That's the power of love. It's a by-product of God's great love towards us. Marriage is a covenant not a contract, a covenant of love!
Our text today starts with these words: As
the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; now remain in My love. Sounds
easy, doesn't it? But what does it mean to remain or
abide in Christ love? And where
have we heard words like this before? We heard similar words in
last week's sermon, utilizing the verses just preceding our passage, about Jesus
being the true vine and you being the branches. Jesus said: "Remain
in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must
remain in the vine." As we discussed last week that fruit of the
vine is the fruit of righteousness. And now that fruit is being connected to
God's love for you. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life." But God didn't send His son to die for a people
that loved Him. For "we were dead in our trespasses (Eph
2:5)." And so in our
Epistle tells us verse 10: "In this is love, not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1
John 4:10)"
A price
had to be paid for our sins. Make no mistake about it we were slaves to sin,
death and the devil and owned by the same. Jesus paid the price for our sins. For
the wages of is sin is death. Jesus took our sin and our death and bore
the full wrath of God and paid that price. Our salvation is not earned by
anything we do. It's by the work and merit of Jesus alone. It is by His birth,
suffering and death on a cross and by His glorious resurrection. Jesus died for
you. "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life
for his friends." Dear fellow redeemed, Jesus has indeed called you
friend. "The love of God
was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the
world, that we might live through Him." Our Epistles tells us:
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who
loves is born of God and knows God. He
who does not love does not know God, for God is love." If God so
loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Jesus
says in verses 10 -11: "If you keep My commandments, you will abide
in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His
love." "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in
you, and that your joy may be full." - If you keep His Commandments.
"Commands" is far more than the Ten Commandments. It
includes all His words to His disciples. In the first part of this verse, Jesus
is stressing a proper attitude toward His Word. In general He assures you of the
fact that you are of the true faith, and you do remain in Christs' love. And
Christs' love works joy in you. Some
confuse joy and happiness. Happiness is caused by something that happens to you,
it makes you happy.
A
Christian's true joy always comes from the outside; it comes from Christ. There
may be many joys in this life, the joy of the relationship between husband and
wife, between parents and children, between friends, the joy of good weather,
prosperity, etc. But, sooner or later, we must realize the only true lasting joy
is that of remaining in Jesus' love and keeping His commands.
His command is this: "love one another as I have loved you." He doesn't say: "that you like one another." Love is far greater than self-gratifying liking. This verse is made plain in John 13:34. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." It's a new commandment in the sense that Jesus fulfilled it in its highest sense.
Must Christians be told to love each other?
They surely must! How often Christians seem detest each other! That shouldn't
be. If persisted in, it leads to a denial of what Christ did for the Christian,
because Christ says: "as I have loved." He
loved me in all my misery. I must love fellow Christians in all their misery.
His love covered all my sin. My love must cover the sins of fellow Christians.
So in verse 17 Jesus gives us the command again. "These things I command you, that you love one another."
Once
more Jesus stresses the necessity of mutual love among Christians. The very fact
that He stresses this so often indicates that we Christians are in danger of
not loving each other. This shows that we indeed follow our sinful
flesh. We needn't worry about whether Jesus loves us or not, He does. But we do
need to be concerned that we love each other. We are only able to do that
because He is the Vine, the source of that love. Mutual love among Christians is
the highest form of fruit bearing. If Christians don't love each other, how can
they love their enemies? How can they love sinners and share the Gospel?
God gives us the greatest example of love in all of history. "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Love is the very nature of God; (For God is Love).
Jesus shows His love at the altar of Calvary's cross. Where He laid down His life for his friends and enemies. Where He shed His blood and died paying the price for every sin you have ever committed and will commit: so that you might have life eternal. His love for you isn't some kind of contract, based on some type of work or merit of your own doing. He has done all that is necessary for your salvation. God's love has manifested itself by sending His Son Jesus as the propitiation for our sins.
How do we remain in God's love? We keep hold of His Law, knowing that He still despises sin for that sin opposes His love. We keep hold of His Gospel, because Christ has died so that we might be forgiven for our sins and remain in His love.
In short, we remain in God's love when we remain in God's Word. The two, God's Word and God's Love, go hand in hand. And likewise God's word and blessing go hand in hand. Much like a marriage, God continues to shower His church with His blessings, His wedding gifts. He does that through the gifts of His Word and The Sacraments. For where God's Word is present so are His gifts of love and forgiveness. There is His love.
For God is the beginning of love and the end of love, for God is love. It's there that you too continue to abide, in God's love. Only there can you be assured that all your sins are forgiven. In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Abide in Love, in Jesus name, Amen!