True Faith Loves! 1 John 4:16-21

The 1st Sunday After Trinity                                           6/6/21
Sermon Text: 1 John 4:16-21
Sermon Theme: “True Faith Loves!” by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

I.N.R.I. “Psa 13:5 O Lord, I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” David sings forth of God’s unchanging love for us in Christ Jesus. The fallen angel Satan has been a murderer and liar since the beginning. He never speaks the truth. Instead he calls evil - good and good he labels as evil. Satan lies and takes pride in self-destructive sins. He lies and promotes the murder of the unborn as birth control. He lies and perverts love into self-serving lusts which only destroy the beauty and joy of God’s gift of love in marriage. Satan lies and calls Christians and Christian teaching hateful all the while imprisoning people within themselves following a way that seems right to their sinful flesh but only leads to death.
        Satan’s lie has been the same from the day he took captive our first parents in Eden. Simply stated he lies saying, “Has God really said .....” Tearing God’s clear Word from our ears, our thinking, our hearts, and our actions. He second lie is just as effective...he hisses, “God really doesn’t care about you....His Ten Commandments only withhold from you all the fun of life.” Listening to Satan’s lies are appealing, but as it was for our first parents - it is for us - they only bring us guilt, shame, then we try to camouflage our sin and run away from He who is Love - God! Worse yet we accuse God of making us this way and placing others in our life who cause us to sin. We are great at saying we have no sin and deceiving ourselves for the truth is not in us.
          God is Love! He doesn’t abandoned us lost, lying, condemned creatures. He comes seeking us. He calls us to turn from our self-destructive me centered love. He calls us to be honest - and throw all our sins upon Christ Jesus. God is faithful. His promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus are certain. God is just - our hell was paid in full once and for all on Calvary in the innocent flesh and blood of Jesus. We are reconciled to our loving God and Father through Jesus’ cross and renewed by God the Holy Spirit in His abiding love.
        Last Sunday we pondered the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Now as we enter the non-festival half of the Church year - we begin with the mystery of our God Who Is Love. St. Augustine wrote, “ When we come to the subject of love, which is what God is called in Scripture, the Trinity begins to dawn a little, for there is the Lover, the Beloved, and Love.”
          Do not be deceived by liars in our collapsing culture who clamor to cancel the Truth in the name of love. Learn well from St. John, “True Faith Loves!”
        St. John, the apostle whom Jesus loved as a student and apostle in the comradery of the Gospel writes (vs.16a) Known and believed God’s love for us. The Christian Faith isn’t just knowing about Jesus. The demons knew that Jesus was God in the flesh - that didn’t save them. To know only the facts about Jesus’ life is not Christian faith. John knew and believed God’s love for us in Jesus. Believed that God’s only begotten Son took on our humanity in the womb of the Virgin Mary out of His eternal love to save sinners - to save John. Jesus - love sacrificed His innocent flesh for a world full of sinners. For me and you.
        This was the promise of love that Abram believed. Abram was a pagan praying to idols that could not save. Love choose Abram by grace and Love spoke His promise to him. A promise that Love would be born in the flesh from Abram’s descendants. Love would reconcile Abram the sinner and our sinful world to their Creator. Trusting in God’s bare Word of Promise - of Love - Abram by the power of the Holy Spirit of Love believed in God. Love judged him righteous - covered all His sins with His perfect Love that would be poured out upon Calvary.
          St. John confesses, 1Jn 1:1-3 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— (2) the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— (3) that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” God’s Love isn’t a made up fantasy. It is really - in fleshed in Christ Jesus. Love brings us back to Himself that we may live in His love - freed to love one another. (Vs.16b) We live in Love in God. Our Father loves us creating us giving us our body and soul. He calls us to be male or female and writes it into our chromosomes. He preserves our life and blesses us with the true avenue for love - marriage between one man and one woman. He protects us with His forgiving love in Christ’s blood which cleanses us from all sin. He abides us in by His Word and Holy Spirit making His Home with us.
          Jesus preaches about a rich man who thought he was loved by God because he had the finest clothes and daily feasted sumptuously. The rich man despised the sore covered beggar laid at his doorstep. Certainly God had rejected him - his only friends were the stray dogs. Love knew Lazarus’ name - the rich man was unknown. His boldness while living proved worthless on the day of judgment - on the day of his death - for it is appointed unto man to die once stand before God’s judgment seat. (Vs.17) Lazarus’ name means “Whom God helps.” To the world it seems Lazarus is forsaken, but here is a son of Abraham, who against hope believes in hope - he clings to Love to God’s Word and promise in Christ Jesus. 2Co 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. Lazarus clings to Christ Jesus who became a Beggar to make those who have nothing but faith rich. We are like Christ Jesus in this world. We humble ourselves to serve our neighbor in love - we pray for those who persecute us - loving our enemy - for we are as Jesus as Love is in this world.
        God the Holy Spirit strengthens us in the assurance of God’s Perfect Love for us in Christ Jesus. (Vs.18) It isn’t our love that is perfect - God’s love is perfect. Perfect in accomplishing your salvation. Perfect in making you His own in Holy Baptism. Perfect in keeping and preserving you in His love by faith through His Gospel. We have Moses and the Prophets - we listen to the Word of God the Holy Bible.
          The Holy Spirit of Love replaces our fear of judgment with rich and daily showers of Christ’s blood washing away our sin, our death, our hell, our judgment. He makes us perfect in His Love - He places it upon our lips in bread and wine with His loving Words - “Take eat, take drink - this is My living Body and blood - given and shed for you - you are forgiven - now you live in Me and I live in you! Do not fear! I have brought you from death to life eternal.”
            Look only to Christ crucified and risen as the font and source of true love. (Vs.19) Satan’s lie will always want you to look inside of yourself, to trust in your feelings as the source of love. Our Lord Jesus rightly diagnoses what you will find if you look inside of yourself as the source of love. Mar 7:21-23 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, (22) thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. (23) All these evil things come from within and defile a man." Self chosen love is always self serving, deceptive, and ultimately self-destroying love.
          Our self-chosen works of love are only lies that we use to justify our deadly pursuit of pleasure trusting in our own fallen wisdom. (Vs.20) Christian faith isn’t just the right words - as we confess in the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds. Faith isn’t just saying “I love God” it is letting God’s love flow through us to serve our brother, forgive our enemies, reconcile those whom our sin have alienated.
            Love and His Word is the only font and source of True Love. (Vs.21) On the night our Lord Jesus lovingly gave Himself into the hand of His enemies as sacrifice for our sin. He preached, Joh 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.Joh 15:9-14 "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. (10) If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. (11) "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. (12) This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (13) Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. (14) You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” You cannot truly love without Jesus and God’s Holy Ten Commandments.
          76 years ago on this day on the beaches of Normandy in France, many allied soldiers demonstrated true love. 3,400 would lay down their lives on D-Day to free Europe from the grip of progressive national socialism and liberate those that culture deemed subhuman with no right to life. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines were doing a work of love as they fought under the authority of their nations to bring peace. The fourth commandment of the order of authority gives government the right to wield the sword and wage just wars to protect its citizens. The soldiers fought under orders - they weren’t allowed to shoot anyone they saw - only enemy combatants.
          Christian love flows from God our Loving Father’s heart to us through the Love of Jesus crucified and risen for us and by His Holy Loving Spirit we die to self and rise to serve our neighbor through the channels of God’s Holy Ten Commandments. True Love is shaped and formed by the will of Love - God’s Will - His Ten Words. True Faith loves all by confessing the true and only Triune God. Loves by praying for all even our enemies. Loves by hearing God’s Word preached inviting and bringing all into Christ’s Church. Loves by respecting and honoring God’s order in the home in father and mother - and in the state by those in legal authority. Loves by protecting human life from the moment of conception to the point of natural death. Loves by reserving sex for the boundaries of marriage as husband and wife love and honor one another. Loves by trusting God for personal property and takes care of those in need through what the Lord has given them not neglecting those who starve at our doorsteps. Loves by explaining everything our neighbor does in the kindest way possible. Loves by holding that our neighbor is innocent until proven guilty in a proper court of law. Loves by being happy with what the Lord has given them and content where the Lord has called them to serve Him by pouring out our live in loving service from our neighbor.   Our love falls short - God’s love never will - so we daily pray, "LORD, be merciful to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You." Forgiven in Christ His love flows through us by His Holy Spirit and we love as God the Father loves, “ Blessed is he who considers the poor; The LORD will deliver him in time of trouble. “ Amen.