God and Love
St. John 15:9-17
May 6, 2018 – Redeemer
If one of your friends asked you to describe God using one word, what word would you use? God is ________ fill in the blank. Love. Peace. Strength. Comfort. Life. Father. Jesus. Here’s the problem – one word won’t do. You can’t confess God with a single Word.
Now God in one word is quite acceptable to the world, but the moment we begin to confess more than “God is God” or “God is love” the world protests. Should you confess, “The only true God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” watch out. What about Allah? What about Jewish believers? Aren’t all gods really just different manifestations of the one God? Isn’t the important thing that we are all people faith?
This is not only the world’s problem; it begins is us. Not one of us wants someone else to define the words if it means we are wrong. We don’t want someone else to tell us the truth. We want to determine the truth for ourselves. Absolute truth, a truth that doesn’t depend and bend around you, upsets you. Because of our sinful rebellion against God each of us really wants to be god – we each want to define who god is, determine what his word says, and define his love in our own way. There are parts of God’s Word you don’t like – it might be God’s truth about stewardship or communion, or marriage, or divorce, or salvation, or modesty. What do you do? You search out someone who agrees with your definition. You define the truth with your words to ease your conscience or keep the peace in your family.
Jesus is speaking the words of John 15 to His disciples on the night He is betrayed – right after the Lord’s Supper and before He goes to the garden of Gethsemane where He will be arrested. The next day He would be dead. His Words to His disciples are preparing them not only for His death, but also for their lives after He rises and ascends into heaven.
If there is anyone whose Word we should take as the truth – it is a man who says He will rise after He has been dead three days and then does it. If this same man says He is God, does things only God can do and everything He says happens – all the more reason we should listen to Him. Jesus speaks to His disciples and to us some very specific words (definitions if you will) about God and love, for this one reason. Only One God is true and only His love will save you from sin and death.
When you are facing death for your sins, when your guilt is hammering your conscience, when you are overcome by worry or terrified of the evil in the world, not any god will do. There is only one God who took your sins away, who carried your guilt, who stood toe to toe against the Devil and destroyed him in the third round. His name is Jesus. He is the only begotten Son of the His Father, born of Mary in the flesh. Hear now His Word about God and His love.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 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.”
Here Jesus defines love. Love is keeping God the Father’s Word. This is how Jesus loved us. He kept His Father’s Word. His Father said, “Son, the world is full of rebels. They hate me. They have chosen to follow their hearts, to love evil, and in doing so they have chosen to die. I don’t want them to die, so I’m sending you. I promised them from the first day of their sin I would save them and now the time has come. You’re going to save them. Your life will be in danger from the moment you are conceived. They will hate you. They will reject you. They will kill you. But I will put all they did against me on you. Bear the sin of the world. Receive all my anger at them. Suffer hell for these rebels, that they might be my children again. And when it is finished I will bring you home. I love you Son.” And to His Father the only begotten Son of God said, “Yes, dad.”
Isn’t that a strange definition of love? To love someone is to keep the commandments of God. That is what Jesus did for you. The Son of God had no reason to love you – you had rejected His Father, you hated His Word, you were a rebel in the house. But His Father said, “Go” and Jesus went. His Father said, “Go to hell” and Jesus suffered hell for our sins. His Father said, “Die for your prodigal brothers and promiscuous sisters” and He died. Jesus didn’t love you by saying, “Do whatever you want and I’ll love you.” He loved you by laying down His life for your sins and taking it up again. He loved you by doing what His Father told Him to do.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Think about those men listening to Jesus that night. After He rose from the dead the only way their preaching could be silenced was by killing them. They all laid down their lives for Jesus. When the government said you cannot say Jesus is God, they said, “We must obey God rather than men.” They were given the Holy Spirit, penned the Word of God that we call the New Testament. They had been loved by God in His Son and now they loved God by keeping His Word, guarding it against false teachers, preaching it to the world, and laying down their lives for their friend Jesus.
Do you want to know what love means? Love means keeping God’s Word. Do you want to love your neighbor and love God? Keep His Word; trust the God who rose from the dead. Don’t worship your wealth or health or children – worship Him. Don’t waste God’s name by using it as curse word. Be in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day – no matter what. Honor your father and mother and parents love your children by giving them God’s Word. Stand for life and for marriage – no dirty jokes, no disparaging men or women, or male or female. Be honest in all your financial dealings. Speak the truth in love, and don’t repeat rumors. Be content. And when you fail to love God – confess your sins and seek God’s forgiveness. Lay down your life for your neighbor by listening to Jesus.
By keeping His Word you will be the weirdest person on the block. You’ll suffer. You’ll be called a bigot and hater. You may not have to give up your life, but you’ll lose friends, you could lose a job. There will be a lot of pressure for you to redefine what God’s Word says. Just say “God is God” and “Love is love” and you’ll be fine. But you won’t be fine.
Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” There is only one way to joy – it is in the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is in the Father offering up His Son for your sins and the Holy Spirit calling you to believe it – you are forgiven. There is no other god and no other love that will give you joy. That is the true meaning of God and of love in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
May 5, 2018 anno Domini