August's Sermons

Church Period: Lent Easter 7th Sunday After, Mother's Day
Sermon Title: The Tests Of True Christian Love
Sermon Date: May 12, 1991
Rev. August Hauptman
Sermon Text: 1 John 4:13-21

Dear Christian friends:

A mother's love is notorious for its reliability and faithfulness. The Bible even uses it as an example of God's love. Through the prophet Isaiah God asks, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” Then God answers his own question with these words, showing the superiority of his love, “Yes, they (mothers) may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15) David confirms this greater love of God saying, “When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.” (Psalm 27:10)

In our text, the apostle of love, John, calls our attention to this amazing love of God which is greater than parental love. He commends this love to us and urges us to receive it and then demonstrate this love in our lives. In a way he even gives us some tests by which we may measure our love to see if it is true love.

The first proof or test of our love can be summoned up in this question: Do I believe that God loves me? We cannot really have true love unless we believe that he loves us. In our text John says, “We love because he first loved us.” (verse 19)

Most people do not believe that God loves them. Because of our natural sinfulness and rebellion against God, we don't see how God could possibly love us. It doesn't seem reasonable. So we tend to leave God out of our lives. We get busy working and playing. The student with his studies the artist with his art, the business man with his business, the soldier with his soldiering, the mother with her mothering, the playboy with his playing, the religious with his religion, that negates the true love of God, the Gospel, and trusts in the works of the law.

Some who are more audacious attempt to prove insolently that there is no God to whom they are accountable. They may support various theories of evolution one such that the world began with a big bang etc. These all deny the plain evidence before their very eyes, for God has not left man without evidence of his existence: “The heavens (sky) declare the glory of God and the whole earth shows his handiwork. “Those who deny that there is a God contradict their own reason, for the Bible says, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt; they have done abominable works.” (Psalm 14:1) People behave in these foolish ways simply because they cannot believe that God loves them.

Even though it is unreasonable and a mystery, God does love us sinners. John and the other eleven apostles and St. Paul witness to this glorious truth. They were eyewitnesses of his glory. John says in our text, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” (verse 14) By this act God showed His unconditional love. We are not talking about ordinary human love, such as a mother has for her child, commendable as that is. We are talking about God's love in Jesus Christ which surpasses all human love. We have a much greater reason to love others: God has loved us in Jesus Christ while we were enemies. Now we can love even those who hate us.

By this God gives us his Holy Spirit so that we can believe the unbelievable and even have the courage to acknowledge or confess that God loves and forgives sinners. John says in our text, "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” (verses 15-16a) Do _you_know and rely on the love God has for you? This is John's first test of true Christian love.

Another test which he presents is this: Do I have confidence regarding the day of universal judgment? (verses 16-18) There will be a day of universal judgment. Although a person may not admit it, he knows in his heart that death is God's summons to open the books and give account to him. This is why people fear death. They know instinctively what the Bible says and their conscience confirms it: “It is appointed unto man once to die, after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27) St. Paul says, “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the Law.”(1 Cor. 15:56) The Holy Law of God which we have broken condemns us. This is the sting of death.

However, those who really love God will have confidence on that day of universal judgment and even look forward to it. How can they? Because the Judge is Jesus, their Friend and Savior, whom they trusted that they might have forgiveness of sins. And because of God's love and forgiveness they in turn loved God and showed this love by many good works which they did. So John writes in our text, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” In this way, love is made complete among us so that we have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him (we love and do good, just like God). There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (verses 16b-18)

We have this boldness toward Christ, the Judge, because the Holy Spirit through the Word has conformed us to the very image of God the Father and Jesus the Son. Much of God's love, mercy, and goodness can now be seen in us. This is the second test of true Christian love: Do I have confidence on the day of Judgment or do I dread and fear it?

This leads us to to the final test or proof of Christian love: Do I love my Christian brothers and sisters who are the visible, living image or likeness of God? Those who really love God, also love their fellow believers. John says in the verse preceding our text: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”(verse 12) Since our love has its source in God's love, his love achieves full expression (“is made complete”) when we love our fellow Christians. Thus, the God whom “no one has seen” is seen in those who love, because God lives in them.

That is why love for a Christian brother or sister is a proof of our love to God, whether we really love God or not. So John says in our text, “If anyone says, I love God, yet he hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (verse 20) The believer in Christ has much of God visible in him; how then shall the hater of a visible image of God pretend to love the unseen, original, the invisible God himself?

Illustration: I think you will agree that your pastor is a Christian. Therefore, much of God's love and goodness is shown through him by what he is by what he says and by what he does, granted that he is not a perfect image of God, but to some extent he is a living visible image of God. Now if a certain church member hates his pastor (and there are those that do), yet they say that they love God. John here calls such a church member a “liar”, a hypocrite. If they don't love the pastor, the god whom they can see, how can they love God whom they have not seen? And so it is the Law and Command of God: "Whoever loves God must also love his brother." (verse 21) It is not an option!

If our love is true, we will love God originally and supremely and others in him, because they have been reborn of him, are his children and have received his love and goodness, and he is their Father!

Now here this, all you who claim to love God: Since our Christian brothers and sisters have a new nature and have received excellent graces and privileges from God, and since God is the loving, dear Father of them and us, it is his highest law and command and our most sacred duty, that “whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (verse 21)

Wow! I don't know about you, but I feel terribly guilty and ashamed when I learn this sacred law of God. I have not loved my fellow Christians very well. I have not even loved my fellow pastors very well. Sometimes I have envied them and been jealous of them because of their superior gifts and talents. I have failed this test of Christian love more than I want to admit. But I do it to encourage you to do the same. After all John would not have written this to the Christians of his day if they really loved one another so well. He wanted them to see their sinfulness and then turn to God for mercy and forgiveness through His Son Jesus Christ and having received His love, to endeavor more and more to love God the Father and all his children, their brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Holy Spirit would have us do the same today. We have failed to love one another perfectly. We have not been very good living images of God. But Jesus was He perfectly loved His heavenly Father and all of God's children. He could say to His disciples, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!” (John 14:9) He accepted the Father's call to die on the cross, showing the depth of God's love. By faith in the perfect Jesus we are forgiven and become little Christs and little gods, Christians, visible images of the invisible God!

Conclusion: May God give us his Holy Spirit and empower us with true Christian love - love toward God and love toward one another, to really love God, whom we can't see, and then to love the little gods we can see!

Amen