Love Unconditionally - Sermon 8/26/2007

7Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God's child and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his one and only Son into the world so that we could have life through him. 10This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God's love for us in sending his Son to be the way to take away our sins. 11Dear friends, if God loved us that much we also should love each other. 12No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is made perfect in us. 13 We know that we live in God and he lives in us, because he gave us his Spirit.

14We have seen and can testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God has God living inside, and that person lives in God. 16And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

17This is how love is made perfect in us: that we can be without fear on the day God judges us, because in this world we are like him. 18Where God's love is, there is no fear, because God's perfect love drives out fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear, so love is not made perfect in the person who fears. 19We love because God first loved us. 20If people say, "I love God," but hate their brothers or sisters, they are liars. Those who do not love their brothers and sisters, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have never seen. 21And God gave us this command: Those who love God must also love their brothers and sisters. (1 John 4:7-21)

In the first verse of this passage we find out where love comes from, “love comes from God.” Makes sense to me since He did create everything. We learned that in Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God created the sky and the earth. Some would read this to be that if everyone just loved everyone else what a wonderful world we would live in. No fighting, everyone would get along … yeah right. Like that would happen. I love my family and I know they love me, but I also know that I get on their nerves … a lot.

Author Erica Jong once said, "Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it...It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."[1]

Saying that “Love is worth risking everything for” is like saying that God is worth risking everything for and He is worth the risk. If you do not have love, you do not have God. This is what John tells us in verse 8, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Earlier we sang “And they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” It is love that sets us apart from the rest of the world. I say that, because there are many people of who are not Christians that are better people than some Christians I know. That is one of the arguments that I have heard from non-Christians about why they want nothing to do with Christians. They do have a good point. Some of the things they see and do not like are Christians who:

• Tell rumors about friends and families. If you love someone, why would you want to hurt them by telling rumors about them? Talk to the person who the rumor is about and tell them, not everyone else but them so they can take control and put the rumors to rest. Besides, we have much better things to do in life than to destroy a person because of a rumor that is not true.
• Another one is when Christians say they love their families but never show it. It is easy to say the words, but showing love is hard for some because they were never shown how. My mom once told me I was the “huggiest kid” she knew. I was also the kid that waved at everyone, including policemen as we drove by. I have actually heard people tell their kids to not wave at a policeman because they only arrest people and write tickets. What a horrible thing to tell a child. Policemen are there to protect us from people who really would like to hurt or take things from us. I still wave at them. Contrary to the saying, the police do not wonder what you are up to when you smile and wave. The late Rev. Dr. Richard C. Halverson, a Presbyterian pastor and former Chaplain of the U.S. Senate once said, “There is nothing you can to do make God love you more! There is nothing you can do to make God love you less! His love is Unconditional, Impartial, Everlasting, Infinite, Perfect!”[2] If only we could love the way that God loves us. Tom Getman, then a member of Senator Hatfield's staff, comments, "Whenever you'd walk with Dr. Halverson through the halls of the Capitol, he would call everybody by name -- elevator operators, janitors, subway operators, Capitol police.... He became so dear to people because he reached out to them, knew what was going on in their lives, and would stop and pray with them. He treated everybody as a personal friend." Senator Hatfield recalls him as, "a singing, a suffering, a praying, a preaching, a comforting and compassionate presence in the United States Senate."[3] At Dr. Halverson’s memorial service Dr. Billy Graham reflected, "Two words that I have heard over and over again tonight sum up Dick Halverson's life. One is 'prayer,' and the other is 'love.'"[4]
• The last point that I am going to cover is that non-Christians do not like is when Christians condemn or judge others for the way that they live, act, or dress. This is one that really convicted me because in the past I did just that, I judged others because they did not live, act, or dress the same way that I did. What a mistake that was and I am so glad that through God’s Word I have learned how much in error I was. I do not have to agree with the way people live, but I am called by God to love them. Hate the sin, not the sinner. We have often heard that church is a hospital for sinners. What if we added to that and said, “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a retirement community for Christians.” This all came about in a discussion I was having with a staff member of Youth for Christ about teenagers and church. Most of the teens that he works with do not know Christ let alone go to church. He has been able to get some of them to go to church but often times the people in the churches that they visit will look at them as if to say “What are you doing here. You do not fit in. You cannot wear that to church! Get a hair cut.” That usually kills any chance of bringing them to know Christ. Not only is church exactly where these kids need to be, it is where all who do not know Christ should be, regardless of age. I am not picking on kids for looking or acting differently, there are just as many or more adults that look and act differently that are shunned when the go in to a church. There is the turn off for the non-Christian. That is why I added that a church is not a retirement community for Christians. Church is not the place that we go to sit idly by watching and condemning the world for all of its sins. Church should be a place where people come together to show the love of Christ to those who do not know him. I feel fortunate that Hus Church has become that kind of a church, a place where all are welcome regardless of how they look or act. Hus Church is a family that takes in others and shows them Christ’s love. I was adopted into the Hus family several years ago and was made to feel a part of the family. Churches that are not accepting like this could be accused of neglecting God’s children.

John continues, “9This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his one and only Son into the world so that we could have life through him. 10This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God's love for us in sending his Son to be the way to take away our sins. 11Dear friends, if God loved us that much we also should love each other.” In John 14 Jesus said to the disciples, “34I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you. 35All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.”

12No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is made perfect in us. 13 We know that we live in God and he lives in us, because he gave us his Spirit.
14We have seen and can testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God has God living inside, and that person lives in God. 16And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

In verses 10 and 14 John tells us that God loved us so much that he sent Jesus, his Son to be our Savior … to take our sins away. John 3:16 is best known for telling us this, but I like what Paul wrote in Romans 5:1-8, “1Since we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God. This happened through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2who has brought us into that blessing of God's grace that we now enjoy. And we are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God's glory. 3We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. 4And patience produces character, and character produces hope. 5And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. He gave us his love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us.

6When we were unable to help ourselves, at the moment of our need, Christ died for us, although we were living against God. 7Very few people will die to save the life of someone else. Although perhaps for a good person someone might possibly die. 8But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”
17This is how love is made perfect in us: that we can be without fear on the day God judges us, because in this world we are like him. 18Where God's love is, there is no fear, because God's perfect love drives out fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear, so love is not made perfect in the person who fears.

When my brother was still a toddler there were times that I would take the blame for things that he did because I did not want to see him get punished. But after getting the punishment I stopped taking the blame and let him suffer the consequences of his actions. If Jesus had called on an army of angels to save him while he was being punished for our sins, we would be out of luck. There is no way we could have gotten to heaven then. Sin separates us from God. We would be up a creek without a paddle. We would not have been able to save ourselves. Because of God’s love and sacrifice we do not have to fear separation from him because of our sin. In Isaiah 1:8 The Lord says, “Come, let us talk about these things. Though your sins are like scarlet, they can be white as snow. Though your sins are deep red, they can be white as wool.” In this verse God is inviting us to talk to him and to confess our sins to him so that he can help them change their lives. God has given us the instruction manual. Have you read it? I would be willing to bet that you have just as many Bible lying around your house as I do. At our house I know that there are at least seven Bibles upstairs and about eight or nine downstairs. In my office at church I have about 12 different versions on my bookshelf and I have one that is coming via UPS so I can take Old Testament History and New Testament History this fall. Never mind that I have a Bible on my handheld computer, three software copies on my laptop, and an endless supply of free websites that let you not only read dozens of different versions of the Bible but you can listen to them to. As of 2001 the Bible has been translated into more than 1,200 languages.[5] In the United States alone over 168,000 Bibles are sold or given away[6], which comes to about 61,320,000 each year. God has made sure that we have no excuses for not having a copy of the Bible available to us.

This takes us to the final part of today’s passage; 19We love because God first loved us. 20If people say, "I love God," but hate their brothers or sisters, they are liars. Those who do not love their brothers and sisters, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have never seen. 21And God gave us this command: Those who love God must also love their brothers and sisters. Our brothers and sisters are also our neighbors and in the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus tells us that everyone is our neighbor. This takes me right back to the three points that non-Christians do not like that I talked about earlier, don’t spread rumors, don’t say that you love and then not show it, don’t judge or condemn other. If we do not love each other we cannot love God. Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37-39, “The greatest commandment is to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' 38This is the first and most important command. 39And the second command is like the first: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.'” Seems easy enough. Love everyone the way the God loves us. That’s it. That is all we have to do. Once you make the decision to accept Christ dig into the instruction manual and learn. And most importantly, love everyone the way that he does, unconditionally.

Amen.

Because of Him ~ Terry