Love As Jesus Has Loved You
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God through which the Holy Spirit guides our hearts and minds today is what Jesus spoke, recorded in John 15:12:
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (NIV)
Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
“All you need is love,” the Beatles sang years ago. A month or so ago, it seemed that we were reliving flashbacks to the sixties. The news reported anti-war marches and protests. Many of the voices and faces were the same as thirty-five years ago, just a bit more gray. And like in the sixties, there was a lot of talk of love instead of war. “All you need is love.”
If someone simply glances at Jesus words in John 15, he appears to say something similar on the surface. “Love each other,” he says. But when we look at the context of what Jesus says, when we look at the words and thoughts surrounding those words, we see that Jesus is talking about an entirely different kind of love. In fact, compared to Jesus’ love, the love that the Beatles sang about or that the world tauts is no love at all.
Only Jesus’ followers can know and show the love that Jesus talks about. Those who don’t know Jesus may have a similar feeling inside them that they call love. They may do kind and helpful things for others, calling it love. They may even sacrifice themselves in the name of love. And yet they do not know and can not understand the source of true love and the goal of true love.
As we take to heart Jesus’ words, may the Holy Spirit use them to stir up love in our hearts so that we love not as the world loves but as Jesus loves. That’s our theme today: Love As Jesus Has Loved You. Love 1) because you know the source of true love. Love 2) because you know the goal of true love.
1) Because you know the source of true love
It comes as no surprise to you , when I tell you that our God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the source of true love. “God is love” (1 John 4:16), the Bible says. But simply knowing that fact does not lead us to love like Jesus. Even the devil knows the source of true love, but he still completely lacks love.
We only begin to love as Jesus loves when God’s love touches us and shows us how great his love for us is, so that we believe his promises. We fail to see how great God’s love is because we fail to appreciate how far God’s love reached for us. For instance, how would you answer the question: “Have you ever hated God?” Our inborn, natural self wants to imagine that we’ve always loved God in one way or another. Maybe we are ready to admit that at times, maybe even often, we haven’t loved God as much as we should. But actually hated God? Only a devil-worshipper would hate God, right?
Listen to what Martin Luther confessed: “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God” (Luther’s Works, vol. 34, page 336). Or better yet, listen to what the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul, “The sinful mind is hostile to God” (Romans 8:7 NIV).
You and I hated God. Maybe it wasn’t the seething, blood-boiling kind of feeling , but it was hatred none the less. Before Jesus came into our hearts, we hated God. Why? Because our consciences rightly accused us of sin and justly condemned us for failing to meet God’s perfect standard. That’s why Luther had hated God, before the Holy Spirit brought him to believe in God’s free forgiveness through Jesus. He knew that even as a monk he could not live up to the perfect righteousness that God demanded. Anyone who does not know Jesus but claims to love God either is denying there own sinfulness or is worshipping a false god who does not require the perfection that the true God demands. Denying one’s sinfulness is hating God since it calls him a liar. Worshipping a false god is hating God because it replaces him.
So also you and I, we began life as God-haters. Even as babies we failed to see our utter sinfulness and refused to worship the true God. We were God’s enemies. We had and still have nothing of ourselves to attract God’s love. But that is what makes God’s love so unique, so great. We humans love things because they are lovely. God loved us because he is lovely. We are by nature unlovely, unloving, unlovable. Our Triune God, the source of true love, loves you and me and all others who hated him. “God so loved the world” (John 3:16 NIV).
And God’s love did not stop short. He didn’t love you and me a little bit and then see if we would love him back. He loved us to the full extent of his love. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16 NIV). The Father sacrificed his dear Son for you and for me. “He gave his dearest treasure” (Christian Worship 377:4), we just sang in the hymn. His Son, Jesus is that treasure. Jesus carried the full weight of our sins so that his heavenly Father punished him as the God-hating enemy that we were born as. Jesus died in our place. While we were still God-haters, while we were still his enemies, Jesus died for you and for me (Romans 5: 8, 10). “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13NIV). But Jesus laid down his life for his enemies. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10)
Why did God do this? So “that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV) He did it to give you and me what we have not earned or deserved in any way. He did it to give us eternal life through the forgiveness of sin. Our Triune God, the source of true love, loved us fully to the greatest extent possible so that we may have the greatest gift of all through faith in him.
Although God loved us even when we were his enemies, his love does not accept us as we are. This is a key difference between God’s love and the world’s love, so I’ll say it again: God’s love does not accept us as we are. Rather God’s love changes us. This does not mean that God’s love is conditional. God does not say, “I’ll love you if you change.” As we’ve said, God loved us while we still hated him. But then when God’s love came into our hearts, he changed us.
Notice how he calls his disciples, “Friends,” in the Gospel. You and I, who used to be his enemies, he now calls friends, because he has changed us. He has brought us to know and believe in God’s saving plan. Jesus’ perfect life covers our sins. His blood paid our debt. His resurrection from the dead has acquitted us and declared us right in God’s sight. This Good News of what his love has done for us, changes us. It plants the seeds of his love in our hearts so that we grow and produce abundant fruit – the fruit that shows his love to others. God’s love in Jesus takes us who were unlovable and changes us into lovely creations of his grace. Our Triune God is the source of true love. “We love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Keep that love at the center of your heart and life so that you love as Jesus has loved you.
2) Because you know the goal of true love
When we love like Jesus, that love will show itself differently than worldly love. It will have a different goal . Just as Jesus loved us in order to save us, so also Christ-like love has it’s highest goal the salvation of others. The way Jesus saved others was by carrying the sins of the world to the cross. He has done that once and for all. The goal of Christ-like love is to bring this Good News of Jesus to others so that by the Holy Spirit’s power they to believe and are saved.
This does not mean that we ignore a person’s physical needs. How can any kind of love be in our hearts if we see someone whom we are able to help, in great need in front of us but refuse to show any kindness? And yet the goal of helping those in need isn’t so that we feel good about ourselves. It isn’t so that others may like us. It isn’t so that we have a good reputation. Our goal is to honor our Savior so that others will believe in him and glorify our Father in heaven.
That is why sharing God’s Word and baptizing others is such an important part of Christian love. Our deeds of kindness may attract others, but only the Word and Baptism can bring the Good News of what Jesus has done. Not that we should trick people by attracting them with a hand out and then tacking God’s Word to it. Our motive in helping others ought to be purely because of Christ’s great love for us. But as Christ’s love shines out from us in our helping others, Jesus will give us opportunities to tell others about him.
So the goal of true love is to bring others to believe in Jesus. The world calls that kind of love intolerant. For instance, many object to Christian groups going over to Iraq to distribute food because they view these groups as intolerant. For you see the message of Jesus says that there is no other way to be saved, except through Jesus. The world hates that message. But Christian love shares that message. It even wants to share that message with those whom we do not like, whom we may count as enemies. Christian love knows that Jesus loved them and died for them, just as he loved us and died for us.
It is hard to show true Christian love that points to Jesus no matter what. It is hard to love our enemies. In fact, it is impossible without the love of Jesus living in our hearts. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19) As we seek to love others as Jesus has loved us, we need to rely on his love. In order to keep our focus on the goal of true love, we need to see Jesus love for us. See his love has you read the Bible and hear his Word in worship. Taste his love as you come to his love feast, the Lord’s Supper, and remember the full extent of his love that sacrificed his body and blood to pay for your sins once and for all on the cross and now gives you his body and blood to eat and to drink to bring you his promise of forgiveness. Strengthened by Jesus’ love, love others as he has loved you.
“All we need is love” -- not the love the Beatles sang about or that the world promotes. All we need is Jesus’ love. He is the source of true love. His love changes us so that we love others as he has loved us.
