Fifth Wednesday of Easter (2024)

TRUE LOVE

Goal of the Message: That God’s Spirit move us to be at rest with ourselves and show Christian love to others through our actions.

For the past couple weeks John has been addressing us as “children of God.” This evening again he says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 Jn 3:18). Let us pray: “These are Thy words, O Lord. Help us and sanctify us in the truth; Thy word is truth. Amen.”

Our love is to be real. Nothing turns off people more than actions that are artificial. People look for what is genuine, real, and authentic. The indictment the world levels at the Christian community is, “You don’t walk the talk.” Just before our text John writes, 1 John 3:17 “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” Let’s get real.

Then he addresses us, “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

The first thing we must know for sure is that

We Are Loved

A Poor Self-Image

Psychologists tell us that one of the major problems in our society is that people do not like themselves. However, if you ask these same people—“how are you doing”— they will tell you that they are fine.

This is a case of words not agreeing with actions. We often see how people express the absence of love in their lives through self-destructive lifestyles: indulging in drugs, alcohol, immorality, pornography, and abortion (1John 3:21–24).

— In contrast to this is

A Positive Self-Image

It is vitally important that we possess a healthy self-image that is based on the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. For example 1 John 3:16 says, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

Based on this I know that God loves me and declares me forgiven. That being the case, and it is, then my conscience can be set at peace, and I can have confidence before God—1 John 3:19–21 “We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.”

If I consider myself unloved and unlovable, then I am rejecting God’s unconditional love and the truth of the gospel.

God demonstrated real, concrete, authentic love for us.

He didn’t just talk about it. He didn’t just discuss plans for it. He didn’t just say, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

He went into action. “This how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1John 3:16).

Jesus didn’t just come like so many religious leaders and philosophers. He didn’t just preach love. He practiced what he preached. His suffering was real; it wasn’t a dramatization. His death was real, not a phantom death as was believed by some (Gnostics). His love was real, and it is for you and me.

St. Paul observes: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:7–8).

He died for our lovelessness, He died for our selfishness, He died for our lack of compassion, our lack of concrete love for others.

This love is called agape love, and it is God’s undeserved, unearned, unconditional, and real love. It is as real as the fish and bread, with which he fed the multitudes; as real as the spit and mud with which he anointed the eyes of the blind man; as real as the thorns, the cross, the nails, and the spear. God showed “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7). You are loved. WE ARE LOVED! And because we are love, we now have,

Love for Jesus

Our Love Is Not Just Words

John counsels us to not let our love degenerate into mere verbiage produced by a fast-moving tongue and pious mouth— “let us not love with word or with tongue” (1 John 3:18). That is known as hypocrisy.

Jesus got upset with the scribes and Pharisees for giving an outward appearance of religiosity while inside they were corrupt (Matt 23:27–28). Our love is a

It Is a Responsive Love

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God demonstrated his love through action. Jesus’ live was one of active love: performing miracles, teaching, and doing good. His suffering and death proved without a doubt the sincerity and depth of his love, and his resurrection was the Father’s stamp of approval. As a result of all this,

We are moved to respond by showing our love through our actions.

The price to be paid for a lack of love runs high. How many people suffer as children and perhaps later as adults because of neglect? Love withheld leaves its victims.

There are a lot of people, small and great, waiting for love.

Do we see their lonely look?

Do we give them time?

Do we talk to them?

Do we listen to them?

Do we help them in their need?

Do we show them real love?

We are created to be loved by God and one another.

Sometimes we struggle with our lack of compassion.

Too often we see the needs of humanity like the Levite and priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and we “walk by on the other side.” In the words of our text, “our hearts condemn us.”

But thank God that “God is greater than our hearts . . . he knows everything.” He knows our sincere desire. He knows our cry for help. He knows our sincere repentance. He knows that his Son is our Advocate. He knows that he cannot deny himself, “he will remain faithful” (2 Tim 2:13).

God’s constant love and unfailing compassion move us to “love with deed and truth” (1John 3:18).

Christ is the living Vine who gives us the life of his Spirit so that we bear the fruit of compassionate love.

1 John 3:23–24 “This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”

Love for Others

Improper Motives

We should not practice fickle, conditional love toward others. John begins his section with a greeting to his “dear children” (1John 3:18) and later calls them “dear friends” ( agapētai, literally “beloved,” 1John 3:21; 4:1, 7, 11).

We do not perform deeds just so others will like us; we do them to show love regardless of what their response might be.

Proper Motives

Jesus tells us to love others to demonstrate our love for him: Matthew 25:40 “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”

Our active love keeps us active.

We always have at least one opportunity to show our love to others.

We can bake a pie for a new neighbor, shovel the walk for an elderly shut-in, visit the sick and dying, serve here at church, teach a Bible class, or teach 2nd Grace or Middle School here at our school, invite a friend or relative to attend church, or listen compassionately to one who is distressed.

Recall when, after his suffering, death, and resurrection, our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to the disciples and asked Peter three times if he loved him (John 21:1-19). Our Lord does not tell Peter three times that he loves him, because he has already proven his love by allowing himself to be crucified for the sins of all. There is no question that Jesus loves us. Rather, the question Jesus asked Peter is the same one he asks us today: “do you love me?” (John 21:17).

We do love Jesus. We have been baptized in his name for the forgiveness of sins. We have received his Spirit and are filled with faith. We gather in this place every Sunday to hear his Word, remember him by receiving his body and blood in the Sacrament, and praise him. We are now demonstrating our love for him by our actions. May God move us to continue doing so with our neighbor every day of the week.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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V 18: “Dear children”: An endearing term that John uses frequently. (See 1John 3:7; 1John 4:7; 1John 5:2, 1John 5:19.) They have fellowship with God and with John and other believers (1John 1:3). They are born of/from God and believe that Jesus is the Christ (5:1).

“Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth”: To speak and not to act is like the Pharisees, who “do not practice what they preach” (Mt 23:2). (See James 2:15–17; 3 in 3, 4. Note v 17 for love in action.)

“In truth”: in faithfulness, sincerity, from the heart. Hypocrites may imitate love, but it is not genuine. Genuine love is both from the heart of faith and hands in action.

V 19: “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth”: Jesus is the truth (Jn 14:6); God’s word is truth (Jn 17:17); the Spirit leads into truth (Jn 16:13); those who have fellowship with Christ live by the truth (1 in 1:6); the person who says he knows Christ but does not do what Christ commands is a liar and the truth is not in him (1 Jn 2:4); the truth sets one free (Jn 8:32); we are to be faithful to the truth and walk in the truth with consistent lives of love (3 Jn 3).

By our love “with actions and in truth” we know we belong to the truth. Love in action is a fruit and evidence of faith. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death” (1John 3:14). Our actions of love will be cited on the final day of judgment as evidence of faith (Mt 24:34–46).

“This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us” (vv 19–20). The heart of the believer is troubled and restless when we think of how we fall short of consistent love in action in our life. John is quick to reassure us.

V 20: “For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything”: “An oversensitive conscience can be quieted by the knowledge that God himself has declared active love to be an evidence of salvation. He knows the hearts of all—whether, in spite of shortcomings, they have been born of him” (Concordia Self-Study Bible, note on 3:20). His grace is “much more” than the condemnation of sin (Rom 5:15–17).

“If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God”: Our confidence is that “we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (v 16). “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 In 1:7). Our confidence is in the Father’s lavish love (3:1). We are the children born of God (5:1).

V 22: “And receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands [original language, ‘are keeping his commandments’] and [‘are doing’] do what pleases him”: “We are constantly receiving from him whatever we keep asking.” “Every answer to our petitions is thus the clearest factual evidence that he treats us as children” (R. C. H. Lenski, Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans [Columbus: Wartburg, 1945] 479). It is to be understood that children would ask only what pleases the Father: “Thy will be done.” John clearly states this in 1 Jn 5:14–15, and Jesus promises in Jn 15:7, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” (See Mt 7:8; Mk 11:24; Jn 14:13; 16:23.)

V 23: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” What is God’s will and command? Believe (Jn 6:40; 2 Thess 4:3); love (Jn 13:34; 15:12, 17). “We cannot believe without loving and love without believing” (Lenski, ibid., 479).

“Believe in the name”: All that Jesus is—Messiah, Son of God, Word of Life, etc.

V 24: “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them”: (original language, “remains in him, and he in them”). Cf. Jn 15:5, “remain” or “live” as in text. “Whoever claims to live [(menein)] in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 Jn 2:6).

“And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us”: See 1 Jn 5:6–7. The Spirit testifies through the testimony of John, an eyewitness, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who came by water (Baptism) and blood (crucifixion). (Cf. Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6–7.) The Spirit is our assurance through the Word, not by our changing subjective feeling.