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The Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims that God is love, and, that we as Christians are called to love perfectly (see 1 John 4:15-19). Somehow along the way we have lost the meaning and power of that Gospel, the Gospel of Love, or, perhaps we have never had the blessing of having heard it rightly proclaimed. Many proclamations by well-meaning preachers miss something so very important. Their message is addressed to only part of man’s nature and includes only part of God’s Gospel. Sometimes, such preaching offers peace, but not regeneration. Sometimes, such preaching demands adherence to doctrine, but does not offer God’s love. The concept of “justification”, for example, may be explained, and certainly justification is a wonderful thing, but we must not forget to also tell about the beautiful promise of adoption, of how God so loves us that God wishes for us to become His sons and daughters (see John 1:12).
As a result of preaching only a part of the Gospel message while neglecting the greatest part is that such preaching never fully satisfies the hunger and longings of the heart, and ultimately, an incomplete presentation of the Gospel, a presentation that does not include love, bears no lasting fruit. Love is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have become accustomed to the idea that the greatest thing in the religious world is faith. That great word has been the keynote of the Protestant faith for centuries ever since the time of Luther. If, however, we have become accustomed to looking upon “faith” as the greatest thing in the world, well, then, we are wrong. In the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul writes without a moment’s hesitation, “now abideth faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.”
There is a great deal in the world that is delightful, beautiful, and important, but it will not last. The only truly enduring things, according to Paul, are these: “faith, hope, and love.” But the chief among these things is love.
Some think the time may come when two of these three enduring things will also pass away—faith into sight, and, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. But what is certain is that love must last because, as John points out, God, the Eternal God, is love (see 1 John 4:7-21). That being the case, love is superior even to faith. That is the gospel preached by our Lord Jesus Christ. And we must re-discover it if our churches are to become meaningful and enduring for future generations.
If a person loves others, such a person would never think of telling others not to steal or bear false witness against his neighbor because how could a person steal from those he loved! It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him, it would be the last thing he would do. And if a person loves others, we would never dream of urging him to not covet what his neighbors have. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way “love is the fulfilling of the entire law” (see Matthew 22:36-40 and Romans 13:8).
The Apostle Paul contrasts love with other things that people think much of. He contrasts love with eloquence, writing “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” He contrasts love with prophecy, mysteries and faith. Love is greater than faith, because the end is greater than the means. The purpose of faith is to connect the soul with God. But the object of connecting man with God is that we might become perfected in love, even as God is love. Love, therefore, is obviously greater than faith. “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” writes Paul (1 Corinthians 13:2).
Someone once said, “The greatest thing a person can do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children”, but, this does not just mean that we ought to excel in charity. For, as Paul has written, “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor… but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). Love is greater than charity because charity is only a part of love, one of the innumerable avenues of love. The spectrum of love has many ingredients, including, as Paul points out: patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness and sincerity (see 1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
We say that “love came down at Christmas” referring to our Lord. We say also that he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father (see John 14:9). That is why we say love came down at Christmas. It is because God is love, and that love was made manifest by the birth of Jesus which we celebrate at Christmas.
We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much more of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ made much more of peace on earth. Where love is, God is. He that dwells in love dwells in God. We are therefore to be imitators of Christ, lavishing our love without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination upon the poor as well as the rich, upon all even as Christ has demonstrated his love for us all.
Contemplate the love of Christ and you will come to love. Reflect upon Christ’s character, and you will be changed into that image from tenderness to tenderness, until, as the founder of Methodism maintained, you will be perfected in love. You will become one with the Father, even as Christ was one with the Father, and others will see the love of Christ in and through you. And, when this gospel is affirmed and shared, the church will once again be revived and grow, for love is supreme to any power on this earth. God is love. This is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Only this gospel, the gospel of unconditional and redemptive love, has the power to take hold of the whole man—body, soul, and spirit—and give to each part of man’s nature both its task and its reward. Love is our reason for being. As followers of Christ, we are commissioned to carry love, to carry new life into the world.
In the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day is depicted for us in the imagery of the Lord seated upon a throne and dividing the sheep from the goats, the test of a man is not, “How have you believed?” but rather, “How have you shown love” (see Matthew 25:31-46). The test of true religion, the final test, is not religiousness, but love, for withholding of love is the negation of the Spirit of Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain.
To withhold love from others means that Jesus suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him to be seized with the fervency of His compassion for the world, as if He had never given his life for us.
Be not deceived. The words which all of us shall one day hear sound not of theology but of life, not of churches and saints but of the hungry and the poor, not of creeds and doctrines but of shelter and clothing, not of prayer books but of cups of cold water in the name of Christ. And when we again learn that greater part of true religion, the enduring part, and when we begin to faithfully mirror the image of Christ, then our churches and the kingdom of our Lord and Savior will once again grow. Nothing can restrain the gospel of love. Nothing can put out the light of love which came down on Christmas.
(If you found this sermon to be helpful, please visit us at www.HeritageRestorationProject.org)
