“THE FATHER'S LOVE”
The Third Sunday of Easter
April 19, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be sons of God.
1 John 3:1 (KJV)
Love has to be the one of the most often used and yet least understood words to be found in the English language these days. It seems that just about everyone claims to love or to be loved, and yet nobody seems to know what love really is. And whenever an attempt is made to define the word, it is usually done in some poetic fashion that may sound nice but doesn’t really tell us anything. “Love is a many-splendored thing” and “love is never having to say you’re sorry” are just a couple examples of what I’m talking about. No doubt the reason why we are so inadequate in defining love is that we are equally inadequate in practicing it. We say that we love, but all of our attempts at showing love always fall short, because love, in its essence, is all about being devoted to another to such an extent that you forget yourself, and like it or not, every last one of us is just too plain selfish to actually do that.
Fortunately God is not limited like we are. He can define love perfectly because only He loves perfectly--that is, with a total and complete sense of Self-sacrifice. As a matter of fact, He epitomizes love to such a great extent that the so-called “apostle of love”--John the evangelist--writes, so simply and yet so beautifully: “God is love” (1 John 4:8; 16). The evidence of God’s love for those whom He has created is all around us in the environment that He created for us--so obvious even to the spiritually ignorant person that the psalmist has written: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1; Psalm 53:1). But as Christians we are well aware of the fact that God has revealed His love for us most clearly and decisively in the Person and work of His incarnate Son Jesus Christ. In Christ we see God’s redeeming love in action, because in Christ both the power and the love of God are manifested. The greatness of God’s love in Christ is revealed particularly in who He loves and how He loves.
The greatness of God’s redeeming love in Christ can be seen first of all in the fact that God loves the likes of us, sinners and rebels that we are. No matter how cute we might think we are, the truth of the matter is that we are not particularly lovable, especially not from the perspective of a God of perfect holiness and righteousness and justice--a God who is without sin and hates sin. No, God’s love for us cannot possibly have anything to do with our thoughts, words, or actions. He loves us simply because it is His nature to love. He loves us because He delights in loving the unlovable. Any love relationship that may exist between God and us and among us must always begin and end with God, as John writes in the chapter that follows our text: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
And what have we become because of God’s love for us, revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? The passage before us states that we are called “the sons of God.” With all due respect to those who promote the use of “inclusive language” in the Scriptures, it is significant that here we are called “sons of God” rather just than “children of God.” At the risk of sounding sexist, it is far better for us to be “sons of God” than merely ”children of God.” Don’t forget the time period in which these words were written. A child may be a child, but a son is the heir. You see, the love that God has lavished on us in His Son Jesus Christ doesn’t stop at mere recognition; in Christ God gives us an inheritance: a share in the glory that is His--an invitation to live in His glorious presence forever. So regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, Jesus Christ, by living the perfect life in your place, suffering the penalty for your sin on the cross, and overcoming death for you in His resurrection, has made you a son of God and an heir of everlasting life in and with Him.
The greatness of the Father’s love for us can be seen also in how He chose to express His love for us. You know, we feel pretty good about ourselves and like to “pat ourselves on the back” when, “in love,” we “dig deep” to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves. We take pride in our willingness to help provide for the needs of the poor and the underprivileged. But how many of us would be willing to enter their poor environment and really make it our own? How many of us would be willing to set aside our comfortable lifestyle in order to live life as they must live it day in and day out? Just in case you don’t know where I’m going with this, that is exactly what God did for us in the incarnation of His Son. He identified with us completely, even to the extent of becoming One of us. He didn’t just help us; He set aside His divine glory for a time in order to come into our midst and live our life and bear our burdens. It didn’t matter to Him that our world is messy and miserable and sinful. His love for us is stronger than any of that. In Christ God was willing to “get His hands dirty”--and bloodied, in fact--for the purpose of redeeming us from our sin and reconciling us to our heavenly Father. That’s love!
And as if that in itself weren’t enough, He actually assumed our burdens, especially the one burden that is the ultimate cause of all the rest: the burden of our sin. Sin, need, hardship, suffering, death--all of these things were foreign to the perfect Son of God, who “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2) and who, in fact, “is God” (John 1:1). But He was willing to be counted a sinner in the eyes of God and man so that He could relieve us of the burden of guilt that we have placed upon by our sin--a burden that we could never bear. That’s how strong His love for us is! What Christ was willing to do for us becomes even more remarkable when you compare it with the mindset of our day and age, where “fairness” seems to be battle cry of everyone who thinks that he’s gotten a raw deal of any kind. It’s not “fair,” according to human standards, that “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV). No, God’s love for us in Christ is not “fair;” it is more than “fair.” It is gracious and merciful.
We live in a world where everybody wants to be recognized as being special. And if you have any doubts about that, just check out any of the television talk shows that compete with one another for finding the most unusual people--people who will stand up and tell the whole world their most shameful sins and their most heartrending grief--just to get a little attention. It’s all so sad, so useless--and so necessary, because everyone in this world is special. The almighty and eternal God--the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth and everything in them--considers you to be so special that He was willing to make Himself like you and to suffer die for you so that you could become His son and have a share in His glory. That love makes everything else that we call love so trivial. And that love makes it possible for us to love one another as He has loved us and thereby show ourselves to be His disciples (John 13:34, 35) and the “sons of God.” Dear friend in Christ, whoever you are, know that in Christ you are loved and you are special and, knowing that, you have every reason to rejoice in His love.
Amen.
May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, by the blood of the everlasting covenant equip you thoroughly for the doing of His will. May He work in you everything which is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.