Dear Friends in Christ,
God loves you. How do you know what God’s love is? Is God’s love merely an attitude? Are “I love you” just words that spill off God’s tongue if he had one? No, the apostle whom Jesus loved tells us just prior to our lesson. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”
There at Jesus’ cross is true love. There we come to know love is action. God provided our security in the love of Christ; i.e. the love Christ demonstrated for the world. It is from that security we live The Sanctified Life of Christian Love; i.e. we have a personal responsibility to love others.
Security is huge these days. Been through an airport lately? Count the number of print and television ads for computer security, and security against identity theft, and a security system for your home. All these indicate things are not as they should be and suggest that without security measures all will be lost.
Nowhere is this more John writes than, “whenever our hearts condemn us.”Why do our hearts condemn us? Because we know “this is God’s command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”Those who do not trust in Jesus Christ try to quiet the voice of their guilty consciences by denying God or by clinging to their own works for salvation. They attempt to convince themselves that a number of actions that obey God’s will cancel out or balance out the great number of actions that disobey God’s will.
Believers’ hearts condemn us by a guilty conscience when we doubt God’s promises, or foolishly question God’s goodness, or argue with his providence. So often, we hurt or harm our neighbor and his reputation by our words and actions rather than love our neighbor even when he has sinned against us. Our hearts are not slow in holding our sins, God’s divine justice, and our well-deserved damnation before our eyes. Our hearts are fair and impartial judges when they pronounce the verdict, “Guilty as charged.”
Dear children, we need security against our hearts when they condemn us. We have that security in the love Christ demonstrated when he laid down his life for us. John wrote, “For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”God knows my unkind words for sure. He also knows the anger, the resentment, and the pride deep, or maybe not so deep, in my heart. We need security against Satan as he tries to charge us with those sins before God and argues for our share in his condemnation. We need some security against the false premise, “I just can’t forgive myself.”
“God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything.”God knows the love Christ had for us. The Father’s grace abounds over our sins and guilt. God knows he already has forgiven our sins in Christ. God will not listen to any charges against his elect. He justifies us in Christ. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”I do not have to forgive myself because God has forgiven me; I cannot forgive what already has been covered and removed by Christ’s holy blood.
In some pictures of Jesus on the cross, you see a skull and maybe bones at the foot of his cross. Jesus’ blood is flowing down and covering that skull. It is meant to be Adam’s skull. Christ blood which is Christ’s love for us covers Adam’s sin in him and in us who have inherited it. Jesus’ blood is my security to silence the voice of my guilty conscience. That blood prevents my sin and guilt from overcoming me. That why it is so vital to stay close to Jesus’ sacrifice in Word and sacrament to keep my security system operational and successful.
It is from that security that we live the sanctified life of Christian love.We have a personal responsibility to love others.
No, we do not always believe and love as God commands. However, it always is our mindset and intent to keep the first commandment and to manifest love toward others in our obedience to the second table of the law as well. Loving others does not make us secure before God. Loving others lets us and others know that we are living in that security.
With great affection John calls God’s people, “Dear children,” literally “little children” reminiscent of Jesus description of believing in him with childlike faith. The apostle calls them “Dear friends,” literally “beloved.” For our purposes we might add, “Dear secure in the love of Christ.”
“Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth… (We) receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and what pleases him.”The child of God is no hypocrite.We do not say we love and forgive without our hearts behind it. We have a personal responsibility to love others. The words do not spill easily and thoughtlessly off our tongues while our hearts seethe or desire evil or seek revenge or gloat, “I told you so.”
Rather we love in action just as Christ acted in love. Christian love is both a subjective and an objective possession. It is the love that belongs to Christ and he demonstrated to me. It is that love that belongs to me through faith that I now demonstrate to others even as my sinful nature cries out for me to do just the opposite.
I know I am a Christian and others know I am a Christian by my actions of true love, not false love that is forced or faked. “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.”It is a bit like wearing a Bethlehem t-shirt or sweatshirt. Doing sodoes not make you a member but tells me and others the truth that I am a member. If you are not a member, then the letters are only a word with nothing behind it.
What security to be dearly loved. What responsibility. The Holy Spirit bears witness to our hearts that we belong to Christ. “And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”We know what love is and we experience where that love leads. It leads to our sanctified life of Christian love. Amen. <SDG>