Sermon from 1 John 4:7-12 for August 26

So…

I assume you have had a great summer, and that you have done wonderful things and learned wonderful things, and that you are excited for fall to get started.

What are some of those things you have done and learned?

One of the things that Sue and I are learning about is how much fun it is to be grandparents. Noah is cute and snuggly and easy to love.

With family, it is easy to be in love and to do loving things. With friends too.

Helping out when needed, remembering special days, getting gifts, taking meals, sharing our resources, time, energy, and emotions is easy.

I mean our fdays at Loon Lake were glorious, and Loony as always, but wonderful.

But when it comes to time with others we can be quite guarded.

Nobody wants to get hurt, and so naturally, we are careful with offering our loving support to folks we don’t know well. And when it comes to people who just don’t think right and do right, we are prepared to not be loving at all.

Yet here is John, purported to be one of the Apostles, telling his group of followers of Jesus, and us, something quite radical, that loving each other, even our enemies, is the evidence that God is in us.

Have you ever wondered about your salvation, or about your status, as it were, with the kingdom of God? John says the evidence you need of a sanctified (read that God changed life) is the way you love others.

Now Jesus said essentially the same thing. That it is easy to love family and friends. There is no credit in that in the Kindgsom of God. That is assumed. Even the some of the worst characters on Game of Thrones can do that, though often poorly.  

The fact is, we reward those who love us. In legal terms it is called, I think, a quid pro quo, or in other language a tit-for-tat, or you butter my bread, I butter yours. Give the same as what you get. Loving your lovers is the way it works.

But in the Kingdom of God, the deal is different. God loves us completely, even when we don’t come close to loving God completely.

And so, the author of first John points out, it become clear that there should be a wild overage of love in us, enough to share with even the nastiest of people, because God has overflowed his love in us.

We should be like a backyard pool with a firehose in it, slopping over the edges full; like a river where it has rained for days, flowing like a torrent, like a Niagara Falls, so overwhelmed with God’s love that we can’t help but share it with others, even the kind of others Jesus kept love: outcasts!

So, all the evidence you need that God is in your life, is your willingness, and in fact your actions, that show without any doubt that love is overflowing from you.

So how you doing with that? On a scale of 1 – 10? Maybe a three or four? Remembering that loving your spouse, your children, your parents, your in-laws (maybe a point for that) and your friends doesn’t count.

All that counts is the overflowing love you have shown by your attitude, but also more importantly by your actions, to folks who you don’t know, or perhaps you may honestly feel don’t deserve your love, or even Gods’?

So if you are doing very well at that, what is holding you back? Loving others who don’t love us is hard. It feels scary, leaves us feeling vulnerable. Loving jerks and people we don’t know very well is hard.

Think about it. The list of those folks we would find hard to love would of course be unique to each of us. Your crabby neighbors, that jerk at work, the folks at Spectrum Internet, or the fool that cut you off in traffic.

But some of the folks might be ones we share in common.

In any case, the evidence of a Christian life, Christ in us, is the way we individually, and as a community of faith choose to love folks who need our love, but whom we don’t have a connection with, or whom we don’t see as deserving.

As a church, we try to find ways to challenge our faith, challenge our love, by seeking out individuals and communities of people that we can love. It’s one of the reasons our Deacons’ work so hard to get us to feed the hungry, help folks with medical conditions, care for those grieving.

And it is why we would send a group of folks to Texas to rehab flood damaged housing.

Sure, it will help them; but more importantly, it will allow us to let that love of Christ in us flow.

It’s why we send money to help with Rachel’s projects in Namibia.

It’s why we are always on the look out for needs nearby that we can make a difference doing something about.

It’s because we need to love others! It is who we are in Jesus!

So, what are you doing to love others?

And now I get to sing! 

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He who loveth not knoweth not God for God is love. Beloved, let us love one another!” 1 John 4:7-8

Love is the proof that God’s love is living in us!

Amen.