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Grace, mercy and
peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
As
the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.
Prayer: Dear Lord
Jesus, breathe out upon us all your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well,
and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
In Exodus 20, we read where God gives to Moses the 10 commandments. And in the
middle of the commandments, we read a few verses about love. It says: I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth
generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of
those who love me and keep my commandments.
Now you might know
this passage from Luther’s Small Catechism, which comes at the end of the
section of the Ten Commandments. There’s something that strikes me about this
bible verse: There are only two categories—either you hate God and break his
commandments, or you love God and keep his commandments. We either love God or
we hate him. And we might say: “Hate?”—that’s a very strong word. What about
people who don’t really hate God, but they don’t really love him either? According
to this passage in Exodus, there’s no such thing as a middle category. You only
fall into one of two groups: those who love God, or those who hate God.
Now, if we were to
think about how the world is made up, we would probably say there are three
categories: those who love God, those who hate God, and those who
are neutral. And many people would think, “it’s OK to be in the middle,
because it’s safe—you don’t have to commit to anything, and you don’t have to
think too much”. But this is not the way God sees the world. He breaks the
world up into only two categories: those who love him, and those who hate him.
So if we think that
we are in the middle, then the bible has something to say about this. I’d like
to mention four things. Firstly, we read in the book of Revelation: Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I
will spit you out of my mouth. We might think of
those who love God as warm and hot with love—they are a living, loving creation
of God, with the fire of love burning within them like warm blood. And a person
who hates God is someone who is cold—they are like a statue of Hitler found
high up in the cold mountains. They are cold, nothing goes into their ears, and
no warmth comes from their face. They are dead and lifeless. Now God doesn’t
want us to be cold in our love towards him, but also, he doesn’t want us to be
like a tepid, lukewarm cup of coffee. He says: Because
you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth. It’s as if a lukewarm person is just as bad as a person whose heart is
cold and icy.
Secondly, we read
in Psalm 119 about people whose heart is unfeeling
like fat. We might think of people who love God having a
living, beating heart. And those who hate God as having a heart of stone. And
God doesn’t want us to have a heart of stone, but having an unfeeling heart, a
heart made of wobbly fat, is just as useless. Who wants a heart that just blobs
around like a jelly?
Thirdly, St Paul
says in Ephesians about a heart that is tossed
to and fro by the waves and carried around by every wind of doctrine. Now a person who loves God stands firmly on solid ground. And a person
who hates God also might stand on solid ground but in a country that is cursed.
But being tossed around in a boat on the open sea is just as useless. God wants
our hearts to be completely devoted to him, and for our heart to be firmly
grounded on the solid foundation of his word.
And fourthly, St
Paul says in Romans: The hour has come for
you to wake from sleep. Those who love God are awake
and busy doing good things, and those who hate God are awake and busy doing bad
things, but those who are asleep are just as useless in God’s kingdom as those
who hate him.
But you see in all
these four pictures—being lukewarm, or having a unfeeling heart like fat, or
being tossed around on the waves, or being asleep—God is telling us that in his
eyes there is no neutral ground—we either hate God or we love him. There’s not
such thing as purgatory—there’s only a heaven or a hell. There’s no such thing
as someone halfway between God and the devil, who likes good things and evil
things—there’s only God and his angels, and the devil and his angels.
We are living in a
country where people think it’s fine to be neutral, it’s fine to be apathetic,
to be lazy. Whereas in actual fact, these people in the middle (and you might
be one of them) are actually in very dangerous territory. They don’t realise
how much they need God, and how much they need his forgiveness. They think
forgiveness is a nice idea, but they just don’t need it! And so in Revelation
it says: For you say, I am rich, I have
prospered, and I need nothing, not realising that you are wretched, pitiable,
poor, blind and naked.
Now, let’s come to
our text. Jesus speaks about love. And when we talk about love, we use this
word carelessly. We can say: I love you. I love my wife or husband. Today, on
mother’s day, we might say: I love my mum. I love my children. I love God. And
then we say: I love that show on TV. I love ice-cream. I love sunsets. I love
baby animals. I love a good beer.
But Jesus doesn’t
use this word as carelessly as we do. He uses this word like a sharp knife to
describe the most perfect, complete, pure love that we could possible imagine.
And anything less that this kind of perfect, burning love, he calls hate.
Nothing in our text will make any sense today, if we don’t understand the
quality, the power, the perfection, and the totality of this love.
So Jesus says: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in
my love. Can you imagine how God the Father loves his Son
Jesus? Parents know what it’s like to love a child, but even that is imperfect.
God the Father loves his Son a completely perfect way, because both the Father
and the Son are completely equal and completely perfect. And so their love, as
God the Father and God the Son, is complete and perfect and pure and holy.
But Jesus now says
to us: As the Father has loved me, so have I
loved you. Abide in my love. In the same way
that God the Father is in perfect union with Jesus Christ his Son because both
the Father and the Son are true God, so also Jesus Christ is in complete and
perfect union with you because Jesus and you are both truly human
beings, and in holy baptism, Jesus has connected you to himself and made
you one flesh and one spirit with him.
But we might think:
Hang on—God the Father is perfect, and Jesus is perfect. It makes sense that
God the Father would love someone who is equally as perfect as him. But Jesus
is perfect, and I am not perfect. How can Jesus love me in the same way that
the Father loves him? Well, this is the amazing thing! You are right—you are
not perfect, but Jesus has died and has offered up his perfect body to be
nailed on the cross, and has shed his pure and perfect blood for the
forgiveness of your sins. And so, when Jesus joins himself to you, he doesn’t
destroy you, but he actually forgives you. He has shed his blood for you, and
he gives you his blood as the most precious treasure that you could find on
earth. He gives you his blood as the most wonderful clothing, which covers over
all your shame. And so, as he gradually draws you to himself all through your
life, you always stand covered in this—his perfect blood. And so, because of
his sacrifice, you can be absolutely sure that Jesus loves you perfectly and
completely. In fact, he loves you just as if you were completely equal to him,
just like he is completely equal to the Father. And so he says: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in
my love. Stay and rest in this wonderful love that I give to
you.
Now Jesus teaches
us two things about the way in which he loves us. First, He says: I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from
my Father I have made known to you. All the love that
Jesus has received from the Father, he makes known to us, and so even though we
don’t deserve his friendship, because of his blood and because of his
sacrifice, he makes us his own friends.
“Friends” here is
not the same as “mates”. When Jesus says that we are his friends—he is not
talking about people he just sits around and relaxes with and drinks coffee or
beer with. In the bible, often when it uses the word “friend”, it has to do
with the friend of a king. And a friend of a king is someone whom the king
might ask to come and be his adviser, a bit like a member of his cabinet. What
would you think if the prime-minister rang you up tomorrow and said that he
wanted you to come to meet him in Canberra and discuss with him your hopes for this
country? What a privilege that would be! And yet, Jesus does the same with us.
Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, and he invites us to come in and
speak with him. And so when we pray, we commend into his hands all the good
things we see, so that he can bless these things, and send the Holy Spirit to
bring these good things to perfection. But also, we commend into his hands all
the bad things, the sin, the corruption, and we ask him to forgive these things
and to bring these things to an end. So this is such a wonderful thing, that
Jesus actually loves us in such a way that he makes us his own personal friends.
And Jesus says: Greater love has no
one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Isn’t it amazing thing, that Jesus has laid down his life for us, not
when we had already become his friends, but even when we were still hostile to him,
and were actually his enemies. St Paul says in Romans: While we still weak, at the right time Christ died for
the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps
for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So Jesus dies for us, not because we were already his friends, but in
order to make us his friends.
Now for the second
thing Jesus teaches us about his love for us. He says: You did not choose me, but I chose you. This text completely flattens that false opinion that says that people
become Christians by choosing to follow Jesus, or making a decision to follow
Jesus. This idea is nowhere to be found in the bible at all. What is more
important? The fact that you made some glorious decision, that you had some
wonderful conversion experience which made you feel a certain way, or the fact
that Jesus had made a wonderful promise to you? Of course, Jesus’ perfect
promise is much more powerful than your imperfect commitments and decisions.
And where did Jesus apply that perfect promise to you? He said: I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus, the Good Shepherd,
has chosen you as one of his own sheep. And this has happened without any
contribution from you. God the Father made the world without your contribution,
Jesus sacrificed himself for the world without your contribution, and now the
Holy Spirit makes you a Christian and continues to shape and form you without
your contribution. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t work outside of God’s word—so we
should continually devote ourselves to God’s word, because this is what the
Holy Spirit uses to shape and form us in the image of Christ. Jesus’ love for
us is so perfect and complete, that he is the one who has chosen us, so that we
can be in no doubt of his perfect love for us. Otherwise, if it all depended on
our choosing, we would always doubt whether we really, genuinely chose him or
not. But Jesus’ word never lies, and his word is completely genuine.
Now, so far we have
talked about the way God has only two categories: love or hate. And we have
spoken about how God the Father loves his Son perfectly, and how Jesus loves us
perfectly. But there are other things in the text today that speak about how we
love Jesus. And we know that our love is so often cold, it is so often
imperfect, it is so often half-cooked and half-baked, and lukewarm.
And so Jesus says
to us: Don’t learn love by relying on yourself. Come and abide in my love. He says: 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.
Oh dear—I look at
my life and I think: I haven’t kept Jesus’ commandments as well as I should.
I’d like to keep them better, but I know that I still don’t keep them very well
at all. And if you think like this, you’d be right. You don’t keep God’s
commandments. But Jesus says: I have kept my
Father’s commandments and abide in his love. Jesus has
actually kept his Father’s commandments completely perfectly. And now Jesus calls
us to keep his commandments and to abide in his love. You see,
keeping Jesus’ commandments means loving him with our whole heart, soul, mind
and strength. Keeping Jesus’ commandments means keeping the 10 commandments
perfectly, and seeking in everything we do to dedicate our lives to his
service. But also, there is something else. Jesus knows that we can’t actually
do that perfectly in this life because of our sin. And so he also commands us: Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. Keeping Jesus’ commandments, also means coming to
him and placing our sins at the foot of his cross and receiving from his mouth
the forgiveness of sins. Keeping Jesus’ commandments means receiving
absolution, like we did today, and hearing the preaching of his word, and
believing the gospel, and trusting in the power of your baptism, and receiving
the body and blood of Christ Lord’s Supper. Keeping Jesus’ commandments means
not just seeking in everything not to sin, but when we have failed and sinned
terribly, to come and receive his forgiveness. This is why Jesus then says: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in
you, and that your joy may be full. Doesn’t it fill you
with such great joy when you know that nothing in God’s law condemns you
anymore, and that you can serve Jesus wholeheartedly knowing that he will help
you, and forgive you when you mess up? Isn’t a great joy to know that Jesus’
blood and his forgiveness apply to you in all the situations of your life?
What a wonderful
gift that Jesus gives us! And so he says: This is
my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. And so how are we called to love another. Well, just as Jesus has loved
us. He has forgiven us, even though we were so imperfect. And so, we are also
called to forgive and to do good to all those imperfect people around us, and
when we have hurt others, to ask for their forgiveness. And from imitating the
way Jesus deals with us sinners, we learn from him what it means to truly love
other people.
And so, Jesus
doesn’t simply forgive us and show his perfect love to us for no reason.
He wants us to live with him in eternity, and in the meantime, while we are
still on the journey, he wants us to ask ourselves a question: how can I be
useful not to serve my own flesh and my desires, but how can I be useful to
serve Jesus and his kingdom? How can I use my body and soul and give it as an
offering in service and in love to others? Jesus says: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.
For what? So that
you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever
you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
Our fruit is always
forgiven fruit. It is not good fruit and abiding fruit because we are so good.
It is good fruit and abiding fruit because it comes from Jesus who comes and
lives within us and who forgives each and every single one of our sins. Now, if
we live lukewarm, sleepy, apathetic lives, tossed back and forth on the
waves—and we ask the Father for things that serve us in our apathy, and serve
to build up our coldness of heart, so that we can grow colder in our love—do
you honestly think that God the Father will give it to us? I don’t think so.
But if in our prayers
we ask for those things which would serve to bear abiding fruit in Jesus’
kingdom, then Jesus promises us a blank cheque, because Jesus orders everything
in the whole world in service of his kingdom. So we might as well join in with
him and his loving, gracious will for the world. He says: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you
so that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that
whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. Amen.
Dear Jesus, teach
us your perfect love, and give us everything that we need to abide in your
love. Make our hearts warm with that wonderful warm love with which your Father
loves you and with which you love us, that we may bless others with your love.
But also, when we fail, continue to strengthen us with your forgiveness, that
your joy may be in us and that our joy may be full. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
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