"GOD'S LOVE IN CHRIST"
Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6)
June 18, 2017
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 (ESV)
"How much do you love me?" That's an often-repeated question, to be sure. It's an often-repeated question because people always have and always will try to measure love. Even the risen Christ Himself asked Simon Peter: "Do you love Me more than all else?" (John 21: 15 NEB). Since we aren't able to read people's minds, we usually end up measuring one's love on the basis of his or her outward actions or behavior. If a man claims that he loves his wife, there are certain things that we look for in his treatment of her to indicate his love for her, and if his actions contradict his words, we are usually led to believe that his words aren't all that sincere. We do this all the time. We test love. We measure people's love for us at various different times by asking them in a round-about way how much they love us. A young man asks a young woman: "Do you love me enough to become my wife and share the rest of your life with me?" A parent asks a child: "Do you love me enough to do whatever I say?" A child asks a parent: "Do you love me enough to give me everything that I want?" In every case love is measured by what a person will do in order to demonstrate his or her love.
I suppose on Fathers' Day especially we think about the love that exists between a father and his children. But we dare not forget that there is also a relationship of love between our Savior and us. Jesus says that He loves us and we say that we love Him. But how much does He love us and how much do we love Him? Our text for this morning tells us that Jesus Christ has shown us how much He loves us by dying for us, thereby sparing us from the punishment that we rightfully deserve because of our disobedience of the Law of God. In response to His love we love Him also, and our love for Him is demonstrated in the fact that we "rejoice in God" (Romans 5:11), as today's Epistle reminds us. As we consider this morning this passage from Romans, let's pay particular attention to how our Savior has shown His love for us and how we show our love for Him.
Jesus' love for us is love that literally knows no bounds--love that goes the full length. "Greater love has no one than this," Jesus told His disciples, "that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). There are many things that you can do to demonstrate the extent and the strength of the love that you have for someone, but nothing could ever exceed giving up your very life for the sake of someone you love. Life is the most precious thing that we have. And yet, this most precious of all things is what our Lord gave up for us, and in His case the sacrifice was an infinitely greater one, because suffering and death were not a part of what was His to experience. If you or I were to give up our life for someone, we would only be giving up something that would eventually be taken from us anyway. But Jesus Christ is God. And being the perfect incarnate God, He was not only entitled to live in comfort and joy forever without ever dying; He was also entitled to keep forever the divine glory that was His from the very beginning.
What makes this sacrifice of Christ even more remarkable is the fact that He did all of this not for righteous people but for sinners like you and me. No matter what we may want to think about ourselves, we're no prize. It's one thing to die for someone who is noble and important, but it's quite another thing to die for a nobody. It's perhaps not all that incredible that you might die for someone who has done a lot for you, but how many of us would be willing to suffer and die for someone who has hated us and done everything possible to hurt us? I guess it's acceptable to die for someone full of promise and hope, but nobody wants to die for someone who's never done anything worthwhile and probably never will. Yet that is how all-consuming Christ's love for you and me is. "While we were still sinners Christ died for us." He died for us not because of anything good that He saw in us, but because of the need for forgiveness and salvation that He saw in us. His love for us drove Him to deliver us from our sin and restore us to fellowship with God no matter what that demanded of Him..
Love like that commands some kind of response. It cannot go unanswered. And even no response at all is nevertheless a response. What kind of response do we offer? Sad to say, the response of most of the people who Jesus loves with an everlasting love is total indifference. The overwhelming majority of the people for whom the Savior suffered and died are oblivious to what He has done for them. Not only don't they care; they get all upset and defensive whenever somebody tries to remind them of the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. They don't want to hear it. But there are others--and I pray that we are among them--who know and appreciate the value of Jesus' love. They know that this love spares them from the judgment of God that they deserve. They know that this love, manifested in the shedding of Jesus' innocent blood, cleanses them from all unrighteousness. They know that this love enables them to love others in turn. "We love," says John the evangelist, "because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). But how are we to show our love for the Lord Jesus? We do this by serving Him with our acts of devotion and our acts of loving service to others.
There is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the subject of serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Because grace and forgiveness and salvation are gifts, freely given by God, many people have falsely concluded that the Christian life is a free ride--something that we don't have to work at--something that will take care of itself. That simply isn't true. If you neglect your spiritual health, you will suffer spiritual sickness and endanger the blessings of salvation that you possess. Other people say that serving the Lord is something that you have to want to do or something that you have to enjoy doing. That isn't true, either. Christian service is a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Making a sacrifice means doing something you'd rather not do--doing something for another when you'd rather be doing something else for yourself. The truth is that serving the Lord means being committed to the Lord--being Christ-centered instead of being self-centered.
Love is probably the most talked-about and least-understood of all human experiences. We can express our love in a great variety of ways, but in no way can we come even close to matching the sacrifice through which our Lord and Savior demonstrated His great love for us. A great number of years ago someone gave me this wall plaque that reads: "I asked Jesus, 'How much do You love me?' 'This much,' He said, and He stretched out His arms and died." The Holy Spirit, working through the Gospel, constantly make us aware and mindful of the redeeming love of God in Jesus Christ so that we may believe it, have perfect confidence in it, treasure it above everything else, rejoice in it always, and consistently reflect it to others in word and deed. All of this, of course, is beyond our ability, but it is the Spirit of Christ Himself who does it in us and through us
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.