First Sunday after Trinity (2025)

1 John 4:16-21

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ we have in our Epistle lesson a wonderful epistle focused upon love. It builds upon the love that God has first shown to us, and poured into our hearts then flows out to our neighbors. For in this we are reminded not only of what God has done for us, but also what we are called to do for our neighbors. It’s focused upon Love for God is love.

God First Loved Us

Love while we were loveless.

By this I mean that we lacked love, we had no love to offer until God showed us his steadfast love and mercy for our sake. Now you might wonder about that, but this is picture that the Scriptures paint of mankind that we were nothing in God’s sight that He ought to pay attention to us. Now you might think “Well I don’t remember the Bible verse saying that we were loveless”

The Law is love.

The greatest commandment is that is that you love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, and the second is that you love your neighbor as your self. The Law was not added that we might justify ourselves by it, but to reveal our sin. The Law tells us that we have failed at Love, we have neither loved God nor our neighbor as God has commanded us to do. Now this still is a bit shocking when people of the world hear this, because this

This is not the world’s love.

The world defines love as something very different than the Scriptures do. When the world thinks of love, it is about directing love towards those whom you like or those that have not offended or wronged you. In the Scriptures, God demands that every person on earth have for their neighbor, not just the one they like. For if you cannot love the neighbor that you see what hope do you have to Love God who you have not seen?

Love for our Neighbor

We see brother and think, easy.

It’s easy to love family, as long as he doesn’t mean like, or that family we only see once a year at the holidays, all other family is lovable. I mean I’ll cry at their funeral, I just don’t want to go on vacation with them. That’s loving my neighbor right?

Love includes all.

Especially the people you don’t like, for no matter how vile or troublesome they might be. We don’t need a command or a law to do that which is easy, we tend to do that without problem, but when the Law lays before us a tall order then we need a commandment that not only reminds us what is right but warns us away from that which is evil. The need for these Laws reveals that we do not naturally have this love that God commands. So where on earth can we find this love that is not found in this world? This is why the Father sent the Son, for

Jesus loved you, his enemy.

When Christ came down from heaven, he didn’t spurn us because of our brokenness, because of our lovelessness, Jesus fulfilled the Law for your sake. Not while you were good, or righteous, or had everything in order, but while you were yet still his enemy, He offered himself up as a Sacrifice and pleaded that the Father might forgive you. The Father heard his cries and forgave your sins.

Perfect Love

God cares for the just and unjust.

The just makes sense, those who are God’s children, of course, but if God didn’t have any love for us while we were trapped in our sins and his enemies, then why would He have ever sent Jesus? His wrath against sin is great, make no mistake, but God doesn’t desire the death of mankind to whom He had imparted His image, and He laments when He must deal with us in his wrath, but He is also good and just. Sin must be punished, and either you bear the punishment or Christ does for you. Now

The Spirit fills our hearts with love.

This love drives out the fear that we as sinners have and enables us to stand joyfully in the presence of God. For it looks at Jesus and sees what He has carried for us on Calvary. Faith looks at Jesus sacrifice to find there at the Cross how much love is in the heart of God as Jesus bears our suffering that we might be at peace with God.

This love overflows.

It doesn’t just barely fill us up, the love of God overflows in our hearts and flows forth to those around us. For we no longer fear as the world does that always seeks to be repaid with the same love that they offer to others, but God’s love does not run out and continues to build us up for Christ did this for us, that we who were loveless might be lovely in God’s sight.

God’s Love Guards our Hearts

If Christ loves you, what do you fear?

If Christ loved us while we were yet still sinners and showed us love while we were apart from him, then what do you have to fear? People wonder have I done enough Good, have I made the right decisions, have I accomplished enough to get into heave and be acceptable in God’s sight. They are always wondering, because the answer will always be no. You aren’t good enough, you aren’t perfect as God is perfect. That’s why

Jesus has made atonement for you.

He has atoned for all your sins and covered your sins, your failings, your imperfection with his perfect life that you might enter into heaven with confidence. For your entrance into heaven doesn’t depend upon your works, but upon His sacrifice for you. That’s the love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that each person of the Trinity loved you not because of what you had done, or what you decided, but as an honest gift. That’s why

This love also brings joy.

For if this love that God has for us is rooted in who He is, for God showed love to us in spite of who we are. If God is for us, who can be against us? Honestly who cares what your neighbor does, says, or how they treated you, for the Son of God, Jesus loves you, and has welcomed you into His kingdom. So the world might be in turmoil, but Jesus has promised you that all this is for a brief time compared with His kingdom. So

Don’t Fall to Hate

How can you hate those whom God loves?

Who did Christ die for on the Cross? If Jesus died for sinners like us, then what about those who sin against us? If He could sacrifice for us, then why can’t we sacrifice for others? That love that has been poured into your hearts we hand to our neighbors. They might wrong us, but we show to them the love that God has shown us through Christ.

We still oppose sin.

Not only within our own lives, but also in the lives of our neighbors. This isn’t a laissez-faire approach to sin, the Law is love, and guides how we are to treat our neighbors especially when they break it. Is it love if we see our neighbor drinking poison and let them keep drinking from that cup to their own death? No, we got to tell them and warn them from the danger they are in, it’s tough in this world warning people about sins like cohabitation, porn, skipping church, and gossiping, but

We correct others in love.

We speak the truth, and we speak it out of love that seeks their good and their benefit and want to move them from an end that is eternal death. It’s hard, but if someone hadn’t loved us enough to correct us in our sins, then we wouldn’t see the point of the Cross or understand why Jesus is there in love.

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we rejoice that this love has been poured into our hearts, and that we have been saved not based upon what we have done, but by the Love that God has for us in Christ Jesus our Lord, and that we might say Amen to this gift. Jesus did not close his heart to you in your plight, and so don’t close your heart to your neighbors, but show them the same love that God has shown. For you can drive this love from your hearts by clinging to the lovelessness of the world. What happens if you find that the world is at work in you? Come again to the foot of the Cross, confess your sins, and hear Jesus say once again for you, Father forgive them for they know not what they do, and let that love you fill you up once again. In Jesus name, Amen.