The Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 5, 2024

1 John 4:7-11, 19-21

Resurrection Reality:

Jesus’ Focus is Love— Therefore So is Ours!

7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

19We love because he first loved us. 20If 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. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (NIV1984)

Dear fellow worshipers of our living Lord and Savior,

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

For the past five weeks we have been following a sermon series entitled Resurrection Reality. Each week we have focused on how the reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead impacts various aspects of both our faith and our life. If I asked you to guess what Resurrection Reality we are focusing on today, how would you respond? That question is not difficult at all is it! In our first lesson for today (Acts 9:36-42) we saw how Tabitha’s faith in her living Lord filled her heart with so much love for her fellow believers that she used her God-given skills and her God-given resources to make robes and other clothing for others— especially the poor and the widows.

In our Gospel lesson for today (John 15:9-17) Jesus shines the spotlight on selfless agape love as He not only gave His disciples the command, “Love each other as I have loved you,” but He also reminded His disciples that He is the perfect example of perfect love, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

And you may have noticed that I tried to make it extremely obvious what Resurrection Reality we are focusing on today! If you look at our sermon text as it is printed in your bulletin there is one word that is highlighted in bold. It is the word “love.” The word “love”— agape love— is used twenty times in just these few verses. If you are wondering why I highlighted the phrase “dear friends” in verses seven and eleven it is because that is how the NIV translates the word “agapetoi”— which could easily be translated as “beloved,” or, “dearest.”

With the word “love” clearly before our eyes let’s look at this Resurrection Reality: Jesus’ Focus is Love— Therefore So is Ours!

The apostle John— who is commonly referred to as the “Apostle of Love” (think John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”) — the apostle John beautifully describes how Jesus’ focus is indeed “love.” John tells us, “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 the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

“God is love.” Agape love is Who God is. Agape love is a part of His essence. Agape love is a part of His very nature. It was God’s agape love that motivated Him to create the heavens and the earth. It was God’s agape love that led Him to form Adam out of the dust of the ground and “breathe into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). It was God’s agape love that led Him to take one of Adam’s ribs, use it to create Eve and then give Eve to Adam as his wife— because “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18).

As you and I study the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry it is so very easy for us to see that Jesus’ focus was on “love.” From proclaiming God’s forgiveness to those who had repented of their sins to healing the sick and raising the dead, Jesus’ life and Jesus’ ministry overflowed with “love.” After His resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday Jesus’ focus remained on “love.” From appearing to His fear-filled disciples in that locked room to sending them out to make disciples of all nations through faithful use of His holy Word and His holy Sacraments, Jesus’ “love” for all people shines brightly right down to this very day!

And since agape love is centered on actions and not on feelings John proclaims God’s agape love for us in those priceless words, “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…(He) sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Just as God’s love led Him to create human beings, so also it was God’s love that prevented Him from simply destroying Adam and Eve when they rebelled against Him and brought sin down onto the entire human race. In love God promised to send Someone who would destroy Satan’s power and control over us by “crushing” his head. In love He fulfilled that promise by sending His own Son into this world to suffer and die as our Substitute. (Pointing to the cross) Through faith in the sacrifice that Jesus willingly offered on the cross of Calvary’s hill we have been raised from being spiritually dead in our transgressions and sins to being spiritually alive in Christ Jesus our Lord! (See Ephesians 2:1ff) Through faith in the sacrifice that Jesus willingly offered on the cross the sins that once separated us from God have been removed “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12) and we have been made “at one” with the Almighty!

After giving us the comfort and the confidence that comes from knowing that Jesus’ focus was and still is on love, John goes on to emphasize how important it is for us to make Jesus’ agape love the focus of both our heart and our life. To help us achieve that goal God the Holy Spirit has John give us both a warning and an exhortation. The warning is found in John’s words, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love…If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For whoever 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.”

These are some pretty powerful words! I am confident that every single one of us would not hesitate to say, “I love God.” Those three words are very easy to say— especially when we are gathered together here in God’s house. But, if we are willing to say, “I love God” and yet “hate” someone in our heart, then the Holy Spirit calls us out as a “liar.” If we grumble and say, “I don’t ‘hate’ anyone,” we would do well to understand that the word which is translated here as “hate” can also be translated as “disregard” or “be indifferent to.”

Is the Holy Spirit— through the apostle John— telling us that we should give the impression that we “agree to disagree” with someone whose beliefs or lifestyle contradicts what God says in His Word? Is the Holy Spirit telling us that we should avoid anyone and everyone who disagrees with us on things such as politics or that we should stay away from people who are “different” from us? Not at all! But if we “disregard” people whose beliefs or lifestyle contradict what God says in His Word, if we are “indifferent” to people who are not “like us,” now the Holy Spirit says that we have a problem— a spiritual problem here in our heart.

Think it through, my friends. If we come into contact with someone— especially a brother or sister in the faith— and our words are cold and dismissive, how can we say that the agape love of Christ lives in our hearts? If the actions of our life reveal that we are willing to help other people— but only if they look like us and talk like us and believe like us— how can we say that the agape love of Christ is the focus of our heart and our life?

We need to remember that having the agape love of Jesus as the focus of both our heart and our life does not mean that we simply love the people who are “easy” to love— like the spouse or the parent who selflessly gives their time and their energy and their resources to support and provide for their family or the friend who never hesitates to help you whenever you need their help. Having the agape love of Jesus as the focus of our heart and our life doesn’t mean simply being kind and considerate to those whose stand on the social issues of our day don’t line up with God’s will as it is revealed here in the Bible. Having the agape love of Jesus as the focus of our heart and our life means looking at everyone in the same way that Jesus looks at them, the same way that Jesus looks at us! Remember that Jesus’ agape love for everyone— including us!— led Him to sacrifice Himself on the cross even though we were His spiritual enemies! (See Romans 5:8)

Is this easy? No, it is not! It is not easy to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is very different than you. It is not easy to try and understand their needs, their fears and their concerns. It is even more difficult to give of your time, your skills and your resources to help someone who may not be willing to do the same for you. But again, agape love is not an emotion! Agape love is an action! Agape love is work— sometimes work that hurts! But just because agape love is difficult that does not mean that we have the right to not do it!

It is precisely because agape love is difficult that God the Holy Spirit has the apostle John give us an exhortation, an evangelical encouragement here in our text. That exhortation is found in his words, “Dear friends, since God so love us, we also ought to love one another…We love because he first loved us…And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

True love, agape love, has only one Source— the Lord our God! Even though we have not “seen” the Lord with our physical eyes, we “see” the “love” of our Lord each and every day. We see His agape love every time we lift up our eyes to the cross and see what He was willing to do to save us from our sins. We see His agape love in the “good and perfect” gifts He sends into our lives. (See James 1:17). We see His agape love every time we hear His holy Word and receive His holy Supper. We see His agape love in His exhortation to us: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Once again, think it through, my friends. When we show agape love to our brothers and sisters in Christ we are allowing His love (Pointing to the cross) to flow through us to them. When we show agape love to people who are outside the “circle” of God’s amazing grace, to people who do not know who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for them, our Christ-like actions can open up an opportunity to share with them the message of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

So ask yourself: Do I express my joy in God’s agape love for me by how I treat others? Do I show God’s agape love for me in the regular activities of my everyday life? Do I reflect Jesus’ agape love to my fellow members here at church, to my family, to my neighbors, to people at work and at school? When I see someone wo is going through difficulties and problems in their life do I look at them and love them the same way that Jesus does? How well am I reflecting to others the agape love that Jesus so richly shines into my heart and into my life each and every day?

“God is love.” Agape love is Who God is. Agape love is what motives what God does. Agape love is what has removed our sins and given to us the free gift of eternal life. Agape love has even forgiven us for all those times when we have not loved others the way God loves us. Since agape love was and is the focus of Jesus’ life and ministry may God empower us to make His agape love (Pointing to the cross) the focus of both our heart and our life.

To God be the glory!

Amen