Trinity 2, 2022

Rev. Thomas Van Hemert

1 John 3:13-18

Trinity 2

June 26, 2022

In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

It always amazes me how regularly the readings appointed for each week in our lectionary seem to relate so well to our lives and provide comfort with what’s going on in society. The main reason this is so, is because God’s Word is a living thing. It always relates to us, it always provides comfort for us, because the Triune God knows us and our needs better than we do. God’s Word goes out from His mouth and does not return to Him empty, but it accomplishes that for which is its purpose. All of God’s Word, all of Holy Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

We hear a lot in our day, and especially this month about love: how we should love, why we need to love one another “unconditionally” whatever that means, and what that love encompasses. We are told by those who are of the secular realm what “love” truly is, which is, of course, a direct contradiction of how God understands the concept of love, and so also, those writers of Holy Scripture who were inspired by the Holy Spirit write about what true love is.

The writers of Holy Scripture understand love in a few ways. In fact, the Bible uses three distinct words that in English, we understand to mean “love.” The first type of love that the Bible speaks of is the love between a husband and wife. The Greek word for this type of love is “Eros.” This is an erotic or sexual type of love, which is wonderfully shared between a married man and his wife, by which, children are brough forth into the world. And by the way, if you did not already know this, it is only possible for children to be brought forth into this world by means of a man and a woman. This love is not a feeling or an emotion but an action. Nowhere in the marriage vows in our hymnal, is the couple asked about how they promise to feel about their spouse because sometimes they may not feel like loving their spouse. Their vows consist of promises of things they will do, not feel. While they may not feel like loving their spouse, they promise with their actions to love and care for them. Thus, this love, this Eros love, is an action.

The second type of love is Filial love from the Greek, “Filos.” The word “adelphos” in Greek means, “brother.” This is where we get terms like “Phila-delphia,” the city of brotherly love. Filial love is brotherly love and affection that one has toward his friends. It’s a type of hospitable love, a love that by which, one desires the best for his friends. When Jesus calls His Disciples “friends” later in the Gospels, the word He uses when He calls them friends, is a play on of this word “filos” for brotherly love. Jesus wants what is truly best for His disciples: that they adhere to His teachings, that they do not break the Ten Commandments and repent if they do, that they forsake the false teachings of the devil and the sinful world and trust in Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that they believe in Him as the Son of God who made atonement for the sin of the world. The desire that Jesus has for His disciples is that they become separated from the sinful world by the Gospel, which transforms them into the family of God.

This is often the type of love that we have for our family members and our friends. It is a love that by which we have great hospitable affection toward them and we want what is truly best for them. “Truly,” not in the sense that we tolerate everything they do, but we truly love them in the sense that we want what’s best for them eternally, not only in this life but also in the life to come: that we desire them to live a life of faithfulness; that they repent if they break the Ten Commandments, that they repent if they’re living a life of sin and return to a life of holiness, and that they believe in Jesus as their Lord and their Savior. This is what it means to love someone. We desire this for our friends and our family members because, in the end, we hope to see them in heaven. That’s what we are living for. That’s the entire goal of this life on earth and of our faith. We aren’t living a life of hedonism here on earth where we give in to every sinful desire and every sinful passion that we feel. We are living a life of faithfulness because those who make it a habit of knowingly and readily sinning are not of God and they have no place in the kingdom of heaven. In fact, John speaks this way in the Epistle reading.

Perhaps the most often mentioned type of love in the Bible and the love of which John loves to speak in his epistle is the sacrificial love of Christ. The word used for this type of love in the Greek is “Agapé” love. This type of love, by definition, is not a feeling or an emotion. God does not sit up in heaven needing to be happy for us. He neither needs us, nor is His existence dependent upon us being happy or even loving Him in return. He does not need us. But the love, the true love that God has for us in the person of Jesus Christ is sacrificial love. It is an action. And true love, sacrificial love is realized in the person of Jesus Christ who actually did something for us human beings. This love is a vital movement, a form of existence, an actualization of God in this world and what He did in this world. Out of love—sacrificial love—for us, God came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and became a man. Love caused His incarnation. That love, that sacrificial love, now realized as an action, gave Himself up for the sins of the whole world by dying on an executioner’s cross for those He loves.

So if true love, Godly love, Biblical love, sacrificial love is an action, this is what John means when he says, “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” Love is an action. It’s not what we feel but what we do. If God in Christ Jesus laid down His life for us and died, so should we be ready to do this and serve our brothers, that is, fellow Christians. John speaks of actions, not feelings or emotions. Nor does John confuse “acceptance” with “love” or “tolerance” with “love.” Which, by the way, acceptance and tolerance are not requirements to love one someone, neither are they synonymous with the Biblical concept of “love.”

I tolerate mosquitoes. This doesn’t mean I love mosquitos. Tolerance and love are not synonymous, they’re not the same things. I accept the outcome of Hawkeye football games, even when they lose. But this doesn’t mean I love it when the Hawkeyes lose. I don’t. I hate it. It makes me upset. It shouldn’t but it does. And yet I even though I don’t love the outcome, I accept the outcome. These two things, tolerance and acceptance, are not synonymous with love.

So also, I may love my friend Billy-Bob. But I would not tolerate it if I knew Billy-Bob willingly engaged in sinful behavior or a sinful lifestyle. I wouldn’t say, “Oh well it’s not my place to judge. Billy-Bob can do what he wants, even though it’s harmful to both him and others. But I don’t want to judge because I don’t want to be a prude or seem intolerant.” I may love my friend Billy-Bob. But I would not tolerate it or accept it if I knew he was a child molester. Neither would I tolerate or accept it if I knew Billy-Bob was a racist. In fact, these actions and behaviors would cause me to reprove him, because I love him. While I would not tolerate or accept his behavior, this would not stop me from loving him. Because loving someone sometimes means we need to speak the truth in love. Loving Billy-Bob may mean that I need to stand firm in my beliefs because it’s my conviction that child molestation and racism are both wrong. They’re grievous sins and Billy-Bob needs to hear the truth. He needs to be shown his sin and be brought to repentance. The truth that he needs to hear is that these things damn one to hell if he does not repent. But if he repents, if he confesses his sins, God is faithful and just to forgive his sins and will cleanse him from all unrighteousness.

I know for some of you, this may be difficult to hear. I know some of you do not agree with certain lifestyle choices and manifest sins of some of your friends or possibly even your children or grandchildren. But loving them has nothing to do with tolerating or accepting their actions. Loving them has nothing to do with wanting them to be happy because neither is love the same thing as happiness because we actually don’t want our children or grandchildren to grow up happy. We don’t. We don’t want them to grow up as happy racists or happy murderers. We want them to grow up to be good people. We want them to be virtuous Christians who forsake the way of the world because we want them to be with us in heaven. This is why it’s important to stand up for your beliefs and to stand upon the foundation of Christ, who is the Cornerstone. Do not be a reed shaken by the wind. Sometimes loving a friend or a family member means speaking the truth in love. Sometimes that truth might be pointing out that their actions are harmful to themselves and to their neighbors. We as Christians need to continue to speak the truth in love about things like abortion and the dangers of homosexuality. We need to encourage our children and even our grandchildren and tell them that they need to be in church every Sunday. Because in the end, would they be surprised by any of this, as if they’d be surprised to hear these things come from your mouth? I’d hope this isn’t the case. If so, then repent. Tell them you’re sorry and that you want to do better and that you wish you would have raised them in this. Because in the end, we want our friends and family in heaven with us rather than having them curse us for eternity in hell.

I know it might be difficult speaking the truth in love. Sometimes it seems extremely difficult to love others. But loving others is an action, not accepting or tolerating their sinful behaviors but admonishing them and teaching them concerning true righteousness. And sometimes loving others means warning them about dangers that surround them. Earlier in 1 John, chapter 3, John writes, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies Himself as He is pure.” John then continues by warning us, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that [Jesus] appeared in order to take away sins, and in [Jesus] there is no sin. No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen [Jesus] or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as [Jesus] is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep sinning, because he has been born of God. By this, it is evident who are children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”  

Warning others of their idolatries might cause them to hate you. Because if you correct a scoffer, you’ll get yourself abuse and if you reprove a wicked man, you’ll incur injury. Sometimes those injuries are emotional injuries. Sometimes scoffers will hate you for reproving them. But sometimes you might find your efforts to be profitable. Because if you reprove a wise man, he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser still. But in the end, don’t chafe at the fact that not everyone believes or thinks the same way you do about holiness and righteousness or even the Ten Commandments. You have been baptized. You are of God. The sinful world and those of the sinful world are not of God. That’s why they hate you, thus, St. John, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” I would certainly hope you don’t grow to hate those who make it a practice of sinning and those who do not have ears to hear about God’s forgiveness and God’s love that He has for all people in Christ Jesus. It is our calling as Christians to keep on speaking the truth in love, especially to those who need to hear it the most.

May God protect us in these endeavors as we speak the truth in love with our neighbors and as we pass through this sinful world.

In +Jesus’ name.