October 31, 2010
Dear friends in Christ.
This morning I’d like to begin with a question. It’s a question that most of you have probably never been asked. It’s a question that many of you may not be ready to answer. It’s a question that some of you may not even be certain of how to answer. Yet it is a question that I submit to you for your consideration as we begin this morning, and my question is this: “What is your love language?” What is your love language? In other words, how is it that you express love to your spouse, or your children? How is it that you feel loved or receive love from your spouse, or your children? For most people, this is a question that they have never considered. For most people, this is a concept that they have never explored. Though each of us naturally expresses our love in a specific way, when it comes to feeling loved, or receiving love, our spouse and even our children might be used to receiving love in a different way than we are used to expressing it. It is because of this that Dr. Gary Chapman wrote his New York Times Best Selling book entitled, The Five Love Languages. In his book—which I began using in my pre-marriage classes about 4 years ago, and which I recommend to everyone—Dr. Chapman clearly tells readers that “We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.” [Chapman, Gary. The Five Love Languages. (13) Chicago: Northfield Publishing (2004).] In fact, Dr. Chapman’s conclusion, after 30 years of marriage counseling is that there are basically five emotional love languages—five ways that people speak and understand emotional love. These five ways, according to Dr. Chapman, are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.
However, the problem is that it sometimes happens in a marital relationship that two people who love each other have difficulty showing it. They have difficulty showing their love to each other simply because they are speaking completely different love languages. For example, I am good friends with a couple who struggled with this very thing. Though the husband regularly showed his love to his wife with acts of service, such as keeping the yard beautifully mowed, raked, and the driveway shoveled, as well as by keeping the car clean and well serviced, all she really wanted was a little quality time with her husband where the two of them could sit and talk over coffee, or even just five minutes on the sofa without the kids around. (No, this is not Laura and me, this is an actual couple I know.) They struggled with showing love and feeling love until they finally understood their spouse’s primary love language. Though they have yet to perfectly master this concept, since they learned it they have grown closer to each other, they are better at sharing their love and receiving it, and their relationship has greatly improved because of it.
Thus, Dr. Chapman’s words that we must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love, continue to ring true, even in our lives. But even though we may need to take some time to learn our spouse’s primary love language, the Lord our God is already an expert at speaking to us with our primary love language! Even before we were born, the Lord knew exactly how he needed to communicate his love to us, and to this day he continues to communicate his love to us in the very way that we need to hear it. In fact, let’s take a look, together, at our lesson for today and see just how the Lord our God continues to do this. Turn with me, if you would, to 1 John 3:1-2. Now, as your turning to 1 John 3:1-2, let me give you a little back ground. The year was somewhere between 85 and 95 AD, we really don’t know for sure. But we do know that when John wrote this letter, he was the only Apostle who was still alive. He was the only Apostle who was not murdered for his faith, but died a natural death at a good, old age. Now, as the First Century was coming to a close, John wrote this letter to assure the second and third generation of Christians of the great love that the Lord had lavished upon them. Take a look at what John writes in 1 John 3, “1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1–2, NIV)
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Could there be any greater Words of Affirmation for us, anywhere in the Bible! How great is the Love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! We are the children of God because God the Father has lavished his love on us! Though we had been his enemies! God made us his friends! Though we were born as spiritual orphans, not knowing the Lord God our true Father, he showered his love upon us by making us his children. In fact, here is a passage you may want to write down and look up later. Galatians 3:26-29: “26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:26–29, NIV) Or how about this one! Ephesians 2:4-7: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4–7, NIV)
What greater Words of Affirmation could there be for us to hear today that the words that John gives us when he says in 1 John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” This is what the Lord our God made us! This is the gift that the Lord our God bestowed upon us! For it is through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior that we have Received the Gift of the forgiveness of sins! No longer do we need to fear punishment for our sins, or eternal suffering because we cannot please God by our actions, because Jesus has blessed us with the gift of the forgiveness of sins. We have Received the Gift of Adoption, through which we have become children of our heaven Father. We have received the gifts of Salvation and Eternal life, all because the Father has lavished his great love upon us. Look with me, once again, at the two beautiful verses of our lesson today. In fact, if you have your Bibles open, read it with me: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1–2, NIV)
Nearly 1000 years before Christ was even born, King David spoke about these gifts in Psalm 16:11. In fact, if you go home and read the whole Psalm you will see that with these Words King David was prophesying about the coming Savior. In fact, Peter even quoted these words in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:24 and following: But it was in Psalm 16:11 where David said, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16:11, NIV) Paul spoke about the gift of the Spirit that we received in Romans 8:15-17: “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:15–17, NIV) And again in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! In his great love for us, our Savior did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28) Jesus himself told us that God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son that whoever should believe in him would not perish, but would have eternal life. (John 3:16) Even John tells us in the very next chapter, in 1 John 4:9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:9–10, NIV)
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Though the world in which we live does not know us or even understand the love in which we live, we understand that it is because they did not know him when he walked the earth, and they still do not know him today. Though this can be a very difficult thing for us to deal with as we walk through this life, our Savior continues to shower his love on us through the Quality Time that he spends with us day after day. For every time we lift our hearts and voices in prayer to the Lord, the Lord Jesus sits beside us and quietly listens to everything that we have to say. Each time we sit down to read and study his Word, our Lord Jesus communicates with us, speaking to us through those pages, even as he conveys his great love to us. Each time we gather in worship, we spend our time in quality communication with the Lord our God and Jesus Christ our Savior. For it is here in worship that we speak to him with our hymns, in our prayers and through our praises as we worship him; and it is here that he communicates with us through the lessons and even the message of our sermon. Each time we gather here we spend Quality Time with the Lord our God who continually lavishes his love upon us.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Though we have not had the blessing of physically seeing and touching our Savior as the Apostles did, that is not to say that we have not felt the Physical Touch of our Savior’s love. For each time that we come forward to celebrate the feast of the Lord’s Supper, we feel the physical touch of our Savior’s great love for us. Each time that wafer touches our tongue, and we ingest that bread together with our Savior’s body, we are clearly reminded of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross. Each time we taste the wine, knowing that we are absorbing Jesus’ blood together with the wine; we feel our Savior’s forgiving hand holding our hearts and washing them clean, once again, from every spot and stain of our sins!
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” How great is the love our Father has lavished upon us that he continually communicates his love to us in each one of the five love languages that Dr. Gary Chapman has identified through his 30 years of marital counseling! Our God knows exactly what our primary love language is, and he lavishes his love upon us through it, but have we taken the time to learn what our God’s primary love language is? Have we taken the time to learn his primary love language so that we might communicate our love for him in it? If you had to guess, what might you say God’s primary love language is? Would you say Words of Affirmation? Would you say Quality Time? Would you say Receiving Gifts? Would you say Acts of Service? Would you say Physical Touch?
Though in reality you could argue that when it comes to God all five of the love languages work together hand in hand, I would argue that God’s primary love language is Quality Time, and his secondary love language is Acts of Service. I would argue this from what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37–40, NIV) Loving the Lord requires that we put him first in our lives; that we spend quality time with him in reading and studying the Word, meditating on it, praying about it, and gathering to worship him. Loving our neighbor suggests that we allow the Lord’s love for us to flow through our lives as we show our love for our neighbor in the things that we do for them. Though you may not agree with me on this what is truly important for us today is that we grow in the love that our Lord has lavished upon us. As we have learned today: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
Showing posts with label Sacrificial Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sacrificial Love. Show all posts
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Live in Your Savior's Love (John 13:31-35)
Dear friends in Christ.
Back in 2005, a 92 year old man named Dick Hillis went home to be with the Lord. Now, I don’t know about you, but Dick Hillis was a man I had never heard about until this past Friday when I ran across something he had written. After doing a little research into who he was, I learned that he was a man who lived in his Savior’s love and his love for his Savior. From a young age, he served as a missionary in China. He faithfully founded and formed partnerships with a number of missionary societies for the purpose of proclaiming salvation in the Nation of China. He wrote books about his experiences which revealed how he daily lived in his Savior’s love.
In one of his books entitled Love is a Costly Thing, Hillis writes about a woman who willingly paid the ultimate price out of love for her little girl. Hillis writes, “She was lying on the ground. In her arms she held a tiny baby girl. As I put a cooked sweet potato into her outstretched hand, I wondered if she would live until morning. Her strength was almost gone, but her tired eyes acknowledged my gift. The sweet potato could help so little -- but it was all I had. Taking a bite she chewed it carefully. Then, placing her mouth over her baby's mouth, she forced the soft warm food into the tiny throat. Although the mother was starving, she used the entire potato to keep her baby alive. Exhausted from her effort, she dropped her head on the ground and closed her eyes. In a few minutes the baby was asleep. I later learned that during the night the mother's heart stopped, but her little girl lived.”
Because of her great love, this woman gave up her own life so that her little baby might live. In the same way, it was because of his great love for us that the Lord our God did not even spare his one and only Son, but graciously gave him up for us all. It was because of his great love that Jesus Christ our Savior orchestrated the events of his life so that they would lead him to the cross where he willingly laid down his life for his people. This is the very love that our Savior is revealing to us today. This is the love that led Jesus toward and through his passion, and this is the very love in which our Savior is calling us to live today. Just as he tells us in our text: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:31–35, NIV)
Now, when Jesus spoke these words, he was in the upper room with his disciples. It was Maundy Thursday evening and Jesus had only a few hours left with his disciples. What a special time it must have been as Jesus had so clearly revealed his love to his disciples in everything that he said and did, from the washing of their feet to identifying Judas as his betrayer. In fact, just before Jesus spoke these words, he gave Judas the bread he had dipped in the dish and Judas went out, setting into motion the very events that would lead to Jesus’ death. Yet even as Judas goes out into the night to put his nefarious plan into action, Jesus sees himself and his Father as glorified by what Judas does. The painful scene with Judas is replaced by a blessed scene in which Jesus shows the eleven the glory that is his as the Scriptures are being brought into fulfillment, and his love for his disciples as well as all of fallen mankind now leads him to go forward stepping through his passion, his suffering and his death so that through it he might free us from our sins.
This is the very love that we remembered during the Season of Lent as weekly we reviewed the Passion History. This is the very love that Jesus revealed as he spoke to Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, calling him friend, even as he betrayed Jesus. This is the love that Jesus revealed as he stood silently before the courts allowing himself to be mocked and ridiculed, whipped and beaten, convicted of death and finally crucified. In the same way that the mother in the introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby could live, so also Jesus’ love for us led him to sacrifice himself for us so that we might live. This is the reason we have a cross in front of our church. We have it as a reminder of our Savior’s love for us; the love that led him through his passion. We have it as a remember of our Savior’s great love for us, the love in which we now live—the love that now leads us to put our own love into action by loving each other as we live in our Savior’s love for us.
Let me illustrate that point with another story. In his book, Dad, The Family Coach, Dave Simmons writes, “Two weeks after the stolen steak deal, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?" "Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. …A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong. She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto…"Love is Action!" She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, "Love is Action!" She had watched both of us do and say "Love is Action!" for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen "Love is Action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her. What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it, because she knew the whole family motto. It's not "Love is Action." It's "Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.
As we live in our Savior’s love, Jesus calls on us to love each other, which is exactly what he is doing in our text as he says, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” ” (John 13:33–35, NIV)
In the same way that Helen showed her love for her brother by giving him her quarter, so also our Savior desires to see his love for us lead us to love each other, yet, how often don’t we do the exact opposite? Even though we are a close knit community of believers, how often don’t we allow gossip and juicy stories about this person or that person permeate our minds and seep into the stories we tell to each other. How often aren’t we more ready to go to our friends and complain about what Pastor said here, what the council did there, what a member did or said in your hearing, but we are not even willing to go to the person who offended as Scripture calls us to do and make things right. Or just last week; how many of you compared your own confirmation with this year’s confirmation class? How many of you compared what you had to learn, memorize, recite and answer with what they were required to do, and how many of you found fault with it because in your opinion it wasn’t nearly enough? Or you felt that they hadn’t been pushed hard enough or simply felt that more could be required of them. How many of you, if you had been in the same situation as Helen and Brandon, how many of you would have insisted that you get the quarter so that you could go in to the petting zoo, grudgingly given your quarter away, or simply kept your quarter in your pocket figuring that if you couldn’t go, neither would your brother?
So often we allow our own sinful attitudes get in the way of letting our Savior’s love for us lead us to love each other. So often we have walked in these doors and sat in these pews weighed down with the burden of our sins. So often we have come here knowing our failures and cried out to our Lord begging his mercy and his forgiveness, and that gentle whisper of the Gospel assures us of his love and his forgiveness. So often we have come up to this altar to receive our Savior’s body and blood and have left with tears in our eyes because we have been overwhelmed by his love and his mercy and his forgiveness. So often we have come bruised and battered almost ready to give up, and something in one of the lessons, or the sermon, or one of the hymns stirs in our hearts and we are strengthened and assured of our Savior’s love, and we are ready to go out those doors and continue living in his love. We are once again moved to action by our Savior’s Sacrificial love for us, by his crucifixion and resurrection, by his work in our lives; we are moved once again to love each other in all that we say and all that we do. We are moved to give our first and our best offerings to the Lord so that we might continue on serving him in this location. We are led to work along side of each other, as I saw so many people doing at our clean up day yesterday. We are led to defend each other, speak well of each other, and take each other’s words and actions in the kindest possible way. For when we are assured of forgiveness and feel that burden lifted, we are once again ready to live in our Savior’s love and reveal ourselves as his disciples as we show our love to one another in every aspect of life.
This is the love that our Savior has for us, and this is the love in which we live. I pray that as you continue to live in your Savior’s love you would always recognize just how great that love is! For in the same way that the woman in our introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby might live, so also our Savior’s love for us led him to the cross and death in our place. In the same way that Helen put her love into action by giving her brother her quarter so he could get into the petting zoo, so also our Savior’s love for us now moves us to put our love into action as we love each other in the Lord. May the Lord build you up in his love so that his love continually overflows in your live and extends to those around you so that through your words and actions, others might know your Savior in whose love you continue to live.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
Back in 2005, a 92 year old man named Dick Hillis went home to be with the Lord. Now, I don’t know about you, but Dick Hillis was a man I had never heard about until this past Friday when I ran across something he had written. After doing a little research into who he was, I learned that he was a man who lived in his Savior’s love and his love for his Savior. From a young age, he served as a missionary in China. He faithfully founded and formed partnerships with a number of missionary societies for the purpose of proclaiming salvation in the Nation of China. He wrote books about his experiences which revealed how he daily lived in his Savior’s love.
In one of his books entitled Love is a Costly Thing, Hillis writes about a woman who willingly paid the ultimate price out of love for her little girl. Hillis writes, “She was lying on the ground. In her arms she held a tiny baby girl. As I put a cooked sweet potato into her outstretched hand, I wondered if she would live until morning. Her strength was almost gone, but her tired eyes acknowledged my gift. The sweet potato could help so little -- but it was all I had. Taking a bite she chewed it carefully. Then, placing her mouth over her baby's mouth, she forced the soft warm food into the tiny throat. Although the mother was starving, she used the entire potato to keep her baby alive. Exhausted from her effort, she dropped her head on the ground and closed her eyes. In a few minutes the baby was asleep. I later learned that during the night the mother's heart stopped, but her little girl lived.”
Because of her great love, this woman gave up her own life so that her little baby might live. In the same way, it was because of his great love for us that the Lord our God did not even spare his one and only Son, but graciously gave him up for us all. It was because of his great love that Jesus Christ our Savior orchestrated the events of his life so that they would lead him to the cross where he willingly laid down his life for his people. This is the very love that our Savior is revealing to us today. This is the love that led Jesus toward and through his passion, and this is the very love in which our Savior is calling us to live today. Just as he tells us in our text: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:31–35, NIV)
Now, when Jesus spoke these words, he was in the upper room with his disciples. It was Maundy Thursday evening and Jesus had only a few hours left with his disciples. What a special time it must have been as Jesus had so clearly revealed his love to his disciples in everything that he said and did, from the washing of their feet to identifying Judas as his betrayer. In fact, just before Jesus spoke these words, he gave Judas the bread he had dipped in the dish and Judas went out, setting into motion the very events that would lead to Jesus’ death. Yet even as Judas goes out into the night to put his nefarious plan into action, Jesus sees himself and his Father as glorified by what Judas does. The painful scene with Judas is replaced by a blessed scene in which Jesus shows the eleven the glory that is his as the Scriptures are being brought into fulfillment, and his love for his disciples as well as all of fallen mankind now leads him to go forward stepping through his passion, his suffering and his death so that through it he might free us from our sins.
This is the very love that we remembered during the Season of Lent as weekly we reviewed the Passion History. This is the very love that Jesus revealed as he spoke to Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, calling him friend, even as he betrayed Jesus. This is the love that Jesus revealed as he stood silently before the courts allowing himself to be mocked and ridiculed, whipped and beaten, convicted of death and finally crucified. In the same way that the mother in the introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby could live, so also Jesus’ love for us led him to sacrifice himself for us so that we might live. This is the reason we have a cross in front of our church. We have it as a reminder of our Savior’s love for us; the love that led him through his passion. We have it as a remember of our Savior’s great love for us, the love in which we now live—the love that now leads us to put our own love into action by loving each other as we live in our Savior’s love for us.
Let me illustrate that point with another story. In his book, Dad, The Family Coach, Dave Simmons writes, “Two weeks after the stolen steak deal, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?" "Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. …A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong. She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto…"Love is Action!" She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, "Love is Action!" She had watched both of us do and say "Love is Action!" for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen "Love is Action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her. What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it, because she knew the whole family motto. It's not "Love is Action." It's "Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.
As we live in our Savior’s love, Jesus calls on us to love each other, which is exactly what he is doing in our text as he says, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” ” (John 13:33–35, NIV)
In the same way that Helen showed her love for her brother by giving him her quarter, so also our Savior desires to see his love for us lead us to love each other, yet, how often don’t we do the exact opposite? Even though we are a close knit community of believers, how often don’t we allow gossip and juicy stories about this person or that person permeate our minds and seep into the stories we tell to each other. How often aren’t we more ready to go to our friends and complain about what Pastor said here, what the council did there, what a member did or said in your hearing, but we are not even willing to go to the person who offended as Scripture calls us to do and make things right. Or just last week; how many of you compared your own confirmation with this year’s confirmation class? How many of you compared what you had to learn, memorize, recite and answer with what they were required to do, and how many of you found fault with it because in your opinion it wasn’t nearly enough? Or you felt that they hadn’t been pushed hard enough or simply felt that more could be required of them. How many of you, if you had been in the same situation as Helen and Brandon, how many of you would have insisted that you get the quarter so that you could go in to the petting zoo, grudgingly given your quarter away, or simply kept your quarter in your pocket figuring that if you couldn’t go, neither would your brother?
So often we allow our own sinful attitudes get in the way of letting our Savior’s love for us lead us to love each other. So often we have walked in these doors and sat in these pews weighed down with the burden of our sins. So often we have come here knowing our failures and cried out to our Lord begging his mercy and his forgiveness, and that gentle whisper of the Gospel assures us of his love and his forgiveness. So often we have come up to this altar to receive our Savior’s body and blood and have left with tears in our eyes because we have been overwhelmed by his love and his mercy and his forgiveness. So often we have come bruised and battered almost ready to give up, and something in one of the lessons, or the sermon, or one of the hymns stirs in our hearts and we are strengthened and assured of our Savior’s love, and we are ready to go out those doors and continue living in his love. We are once again moved to action by our Savior’s Sacrificial love for us, by his crucifixion and resurrection, by his work in our lives; we are moved once again to love each other in all that we say and all that we do. We are moved to give our first and our best offerings to the Lord so that we might continue on serving him in this location. We are led to work along side of each other, as I saw so many people doing at our clean up day yesterday. We are led to defend each other, speak well of each other, and take each other’s words and actions in the kindest possible way. For when we are assured of forgiveness and feel that burden lifted, we are once again ready to live in our Savior’s love and reveal ourselves as his disciples as we show our love to one another in every aspect of life.
This is the love that our Savior has for us, and this is the love in which we live. I pray that as you continue to live in your Savior’s love you would always recognize just how great that love is! For in the same way that the woman in our introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby might live, so also our Savior’s love for us led him to the cross and death in our place. In the same way that Helen put her love into action by giving her brother her quarter so he could get into the petting zoo, so also our Savior’s love for us now moves us to put our love into action as we love each other in the Lord. May the Lord build you up in his love so that his love continually overflows in your live and extends to those around you so that through your words and actions, others might know your Savior in whose love you continue to live.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
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