Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, May 19, 2019
God’s people already had the commandment from the Law of Moses: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut 6:5) and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18b). Jesus gives a new commandment. It does not negate or contradict the command to love God with our whole being and love one another as we would want to be loved. It’s a greater commandment: “to love just as he loved us.” The better we know Jesus the better we will understand that kind of love. The more we learn about the love of Jesus the greater chance we will have to pass on that kind of love to others.
You will remember the meaning of the word disciple. It means pupil, student, or learner. To follow Jesus is to be a disciple—to gain more and more knowledge every day we walk with him. Jesus wants us to experience growth. He wants the seed of love he has sown in the world and in our hearts to sprout, reach toward the heavens, and bear fruit for the benefit of the world and the glory of God. It is not just a command from our Lord—it is a vision of the kind of impact we can have on the world. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is how the world will experience the person and work of Jesus—through the love we manifest to them. People will experience the love of Christ through our acts of love. In other words, God’s love comes through God’s people. That is God’s plan—that we discover his love through the love of others. Jesus reminds us that this is about discipleship. The beauty of his mission to love as he loved us is something we are always learning about. We will never exhaust the depths and riches of God’s love for us through Jesus. And we will never stop finding new ways of extending that kind of love to those around us.
I believe our lack of love is due to our complacency and pride. We do not always see the famine around us for the radical love of Jesus. Or we think because we have the correct theology that there is not much else to learn. We should never be content with lovelessness. That is how the world will come to know Jesus. If we belong to Jesus, there will be a curiosity about his love toward us. We will be teachable. There will be a growing desire to show others just how radical and “out of this world” God’s love for us truly is. Jesus says, “Look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting” (John 4:35). Watch the news. Listen to what people are saying about the lack of love in their lives. Hear the stories in this community and throughout the world. There are countless people all around us—and throughout the world—who have never encountered anything like the unconditional love, sacrificial love, and eternal love that we have in Jesus.
As believers in Jesus—even as his disciples—we have just begun to scratch the surface of how much love God has lavishly poured out upon us. We have scarcely had a glimpse of the love that he has in store for us. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:). We are all on a journey of discovery together to learn about the love of God and learn how to share it with others. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
By our love those among us will experience God’s love. By our reaching out to those around us, they will see our Savior who humbled himself by leaving his heavenly throne to take on our humanity in the incarnation.
By our desire to grow, learn, and discover, they will see Christ who grew in stature both before God and people (Luke 2:52). By our empathy and compassion for others, they will see Jesus who was moved to tears and wept at the sight of grief and suffering and brought both hope and the power to raise the dead.
By our welcoming those who are different than us, they will see the Messiah who tore down the walls of hostility between peoples and challenged discrimination.
By our acceptance of people weighed down by their wounds and sin, people will see Jesus “who did not come for the righteous but for the unrighteous.” The world will see that in Christ “there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift” (Rom 3:22b-24).
By our inviting others to the font where they can experience a washing of water, the Word, and the Holy Spirit through baptism, they will see their adoption into the family of God and forgiveness and cleansing of all our sin. They will hear him who says to us, “you are my beloved daughters and sons.”
By our feeding the hungry in community meals, bringing healing to their bodies through the foot clinic, and visiting and praying for people who are sick they come to know Jesus who delivered people from their demons, healed them body and soul, and even raised the dead.
By our preaching and teaching the Word of God, others come to know the Word made flesh. We all grow in the wisdom of Christ. Through the Bread and Wine at this Table, we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus who strengthens us in body and soul to life everlasting.
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