Unleash the Power of God’s Love!

6th Sunday of Easter, 5/13/12 1 John 4:1-11 Unleash the Power of God’s Love! I. To guard God’s truth II. To overcome the world III. To love one another Perhaps one of the reasons you’re in here this morning is because it’s so rough out there during the week. True? Some of you might be saying to yourself, “Pastor, you have no idea how true that is.” For months on end we’ve been shaking our heads in disbelief and horror over the words and actions of our local, state and federal leaders, past and present, candidates for office and those seated in office. The business world isn’t much better. Whether you work in a local outlet of a national chain, a local medical institution or in the corporate world, you’re likely tired of the intrigue, the dishonesty, the selfishness, and the lack of business ethics. And things aren’t much better in the religious world either. It seems as if a scandal occurs every month or so. We cringe at what’s done by some in the name of religion. So what are pious Christians to do? We might be tempted to give up the fight. After all, we’re tired, and our efforts don’t appear to be doing any good. So why try anymore? In fact, you might be tempted not only to give up but to give in. After all, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Why should you sit by and let everyone else get what they want? Why not play their game and learn to play it better than they do? I’m sure you know that I’m not encouraging you to do any of those things. Just the opposite. All of these are all the more reason to redouble your efforts to live like the Christ-empowered Christian that you are. The solution to the evil in our world is not more evil, but the power of God’s love. That’s exactly what St. John encourages us to do in this morning’s sermon text. Unleash the power of God’s love! John helps us by supplying several ways to do just that. Let’s study them together this morning. Part I. How old were you when you discovered that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear? Probably not that old. It’s likely that you knew someone in your neighborhood or school or family that liked to exaggerate the details. That’s a nice way of saying that they were lying. When they told you something unbelievable, you didn’t believe it. It’s bad enough when an acquaintance is supplying you with less than reliable information. It’s far more tragic when that has to do with Christians and their claim to be speaking the truth about our God. Just take a look at what passes for “acceptable” interpretations of God’s word even among Christians! How do you know what to believe anymore? That’s nothing new. It was already occurring during the lifetime of the Apostle John. Deadly false teachings about who Jesus was and what he had come to do were already being proclaimed and promoted among Christians. The Christians wanted to know what to believe. John wrote to them, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” John uses the peculiar name “spirits” for these preachers who were making their way from location to location among the Christians. He told them not to be so naïve. Don’t assume that everyone who claims to have a message from God is actually proclaiming the true word of God. Instead, test them. And the test they should use is the word of God. Wait a minute. That doesn’t sounds like what John tells us to do. He tells us, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.” What Christian preacher doesn’t claim that? Obviously, John means more than that. We cannot separate who Jesus is from what Jesus said. The only way we know anything about Jesus is by what he tells us about himself in his word, the Bible. In other words, John is telling us to use God’s word to test what other people are telling us about God. And in that word is the power to overcome false teaching. Unleash the power of God’s love. Do so in order to guard God’s truth. You have called me to guard God’s truth for you. I have vowed before God to do that for you. But don’t get lazy. Don’t rely on me or someone else to know God’s truth for you. Dig deeply into the account of God’s love for you in Jesus, a love which caused him to sacrifice his Son for your sins and mine. That’s a love which saves us and a love that empowers us. God’s love for us causes us to love his truth, a truth he reveals to us only in his word. Unleash the power of God’s love. Guard God’s truth. Part II. Perhaps you’ve gotten the impression that Christianity isn’t winning these days. Our denomination isn’t the only one that isn’t growing. We watch and listen as one church after another tosses aside one more teaching of the Bible. More and more people tend to place Christianity on the same level with other world religions and define them all as expressions of spiritual truth. We’re getting weary of waging this spiritual warfare. And all the while we’re fighting we wonder how long it will be before there’s hardly any Christianity left. What will be left for our children? Our grandchildren? What should we do? Unleash the power of God’s love. John says it like this, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them.” John is speaking about the people of our unbelieving world who would like nothing better than to see Christianity disappear into a black hole. Have we forgotten who lives in us? John reminds us that it’s none other than the almighty Son of God. The One who overcame death and displayed his power over Satan himself lives in us. He’s the eternal victor. And with him we can’t lose. Jesus wins and we win with him. The outcome of his battle with evil has already been determined. It was declared on Easter morning when he rose from the dead. Even Satan knows that. But Satan and our unbelieving world will continue battling, doing whatever damage they can, until Jesus returns. Until then it won’t be easy. There will be far too many disappointments and persecutions. But Jesus assures us, “You have overcome them.” In his love for us Jesus has redeemed us and made us his own. We belong to him by faith in him. Therefore, we win! Unleash the power of God’s love to overcome the world. If the world thinks you’re foolish, ignorant, and misguided, take heart! You’re not the first object of its ridicule. The world treated our Savior the same way. But that didn’t stop him from loving the world so much that he died and rose again for everyone in the world. Our world still refuses to recognize Jesus as Savior and Lord, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is. And it doesn’t change the fact we belong to him and therefore overcome the world with him. The battle against the world won’t be easy, but our victory is certain. So unleash the power of God’s love to overcome the world. Part III. John closes our text with the encouragement, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” Love. What is love? That’s a good question, and if you ask it, you might be surprised at the answers you receive, some of which have nothing to do with love. For all too many people, love is simply expecting to get something out of a relationship, and has nothing to do with what you should put into it. It’s simply a feeling and they’re unwilling to work at making it anything more. How blessed we are as Christians to know the love of God. John tells us, “God is love.” God’s essence is love. It’s what he’s all about. He and he alone is capable of perfect love. You see, God knows us exactly was we are, faults, sins and all. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And yet he loves us. In fact, his love for us is connected to a purpose. He wants the highest good for us, that is, to spend eternity with him. His love for us moved him to send his only Son to suffer and die for us so that we could live with him. That’s God love for us—a love that caused him to sacrifice his Son for us. What power that love gives us! God’s love for us moves us to truly love others. We can love the unlovable because that’s the love God showed to us. We didn’t prove ourselves worthy of God’s love before he started loving us. Instead, God loved us in spite of our sinfulness and rebellion against him. His love for us never fails. In his love for us he has called us to repentance, called us to faith in Jesus as our Savior and keeps us in that faith through his word and sacraments. When we know and appreciate the love our God has for us, then we can truly love others. So, what impact will God’s love for you have on your life in the week ahead? In what way will you refrain from treating someone exactly as they treat you and, instead, love them the way that God loves them? That might take a huge effort on your part, but the power to do it comes through the love our God displayed for you when he sacrificed his Son for you. Unleash the power of God’s love as you show God’s love to others! Amen.