LOVE

Today wraps up a three-part series that looks at the apostle Paul’s discussion about gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians. In chapter 13 Paul talks about the virtues of Christian love, and he concludes chapter 13 by noting how so many of the other gifts of the Spirit have their own time and place to come and go as needed. But there are three qualities that remain in all times and in all places for all followers of Jesus. He says in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Over the last two weeks we have looked at the way scripture describes both faith and hope as enduring and everlasting qualities of the Christian life. Today we focus our attention on the virtue of Christian love. To say that Christian love is a virtue might be understating the importance of what love means, because it might somehow give the false impression that love is an optional choice for us to decide when and where and with whom we decide to exercise the expression of this virtue.

But in Paul’s summary of the gifts in which he names the three remaining qualities of faith, hope, and love, he calls out love as the greatest among the three. Why is that? Is it because love is somehow more important or more powerful than faith or hope? I don’t think so. I tend to think it is because love is elevated over and over again by Jesus in the gospels as the summary of all the commandments of God. Consider with me today what the disciple John has to say about Christian love in one of his letters to the churches.

To help make sense of what John is saying in this passage, I want us to see how the structure of these verses breaks apart. There is a repeated phrase in these verses that helps us track with the message John is giving for the church. It comes across in our English Bibles as the phrase, “this is how we know…” I am not going to read through the whole passage at once, but we will work our way through one section at a time today.

This is how we know what love is

I’ve said it before; it bears repeating. Love is an empty word because it can mean so many different things to different people. When we hear the word love, we might all get a different picture in our heads of what is meant. The question here, then, is worth asking. What does John mean when he writes in the Bible about love? And, apparently, John did not assume that his readers all knew the answer either, because he takes time here in chapter three to describe and tell us exactly what he means when he talks about the quality and virtue of Christian love.

1 John 3:16–18 NIV

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Let me set a little context for these words from John’s letter to the church. One of the main reason John has for writing this letter is to address a false teaching that was making its way into the church. He’s fact-checking some bad information that some others have been spreading around. He’s reminding his people in the church to check the sources because they are falling for lies that do not match up with what Jesus has revealed about himself in the gospels.

false teaching of Gnosticism = secret spiritual knowledge apart from physical world

The particular issue that John is writing about is a false teaching that was known in that time as Gnosticism. It comes from the Greek word gnosis which means knowledge. John is using the gospel message of Jesus to fact-check these people who were spreading this conspiracy theory about secret knowledge that only the smart and enlightened people could figure out and follow. Gnosticism was a false teaching in the early church that said a person’s actions and physical conduct did not matter at all; the only thing that matters is unlocking the secret knowledge of spiritual faith, which only existed in the mind, apart from the physical world.

Greek gnosis = knowledge

This is why John is using this particular word—gnosis, knowledge—as the way to address his readers in this passage. He is saying, there is no secret knowledge that is only caught by a select few people. Rather, what we know about Jesus is a knowledge that has been revealed plainly to all people. And, to make the point even more certain, what we know about Jesus is a knowledge that does not detract and pull our faith out of a physical world. In fact, just the opposite; it is a knowledge of Jesus that directs and launches our engagement and physical activity into the world.

love is demonstrated to us by Jesus as something that is defined by action

And so, John says, you think you know what love is? Let me tell you what love is. It is not your empty words. It is not your fragile emotions or feelings. No. Love is demonstrated to us by Jesus as something that is defined by action. Love is something we do, not something we say or something we feel. But only when our affection shows up in what we do and in how we live does it become something that the Bible calls love.

This is how we know that we belong to the truth

Alright then, we can establish that the Bible defines love as an action, an act of sacrificial giving from what I have for the needs of another, just as Jesus modeled for us. Let’s move ahead in the passage and see what John has to say next to us about that love.

1 John 3:19–23 NIV

19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 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.

Sting song, Russians

In the waning days of the cold war during the 1980s, the English singer, Sting, wrote a song that spoke about the tension between the United States and Russia that had endured for several decades threatening nuclear war and global catastrophe. The song tells the story of Americans and Europeans who love their own children, while at the same time having a fear of the Soviets which was strong enough to walk up to the brink of a nuclear holocaust which would kill everyone—the ones they hated, as well as the ones they loved. And the song makes the conclusion that a toxic and deadly fear such as that is completely ignorant if the Russians love their children too.

we do not get to pick and choose who we are going to love and who we are not going to love

The point of the song is this: sometimes we hold onto fears and anxieties which can develop into hatred for certain people or certain groups. And this fear and anxiety and hatred takes root in our hearts and develops into something that is toxic and damaging even for the people we love. And into that, we read these words from John in scripture today reminding us that we do not get to pick and choose who we are going to love and who we are not going to love. Jesus demonstrated an action of love poured out in his sacrifice for all people, even the people who hated Jesus and condemned him to that cross.

It might be easy at first glance to hear the words of scripture to love one another and walk away with a quick checkmark in the box. Yep, there are people that I love; mark that one as done. But now John is pressing us further by exposing to each one of us the truth that there are also people in the world who we do not love. And what do we do with that? How can we know if our Christian love meets the standard set by God as commanded in scripture? Or—to borrow the words of John in today’s passage—how do we know that we belong to the truth?

if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than out hearts

if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God

John gives us two scenarios. One: if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. And two: if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. The Greek word for condemn means to blame. Think of it this way, if we are to blame because we have not, in fact, loved others the way God has commanded, then our hearts are guilty before God. But it is precisely at this point where John reminds us that God’s heart of love is greater than our own hearts. We are reminded that through the righteousness of Jesus given to us, our hearts are not condemned before God—the guilt of our failure to love is taken away.

we still struggle to keep the command to love one another

Now then, with hearts that are no longer guilty of our failure to love others, we have confidence before God. Can I make a very important distinction here? Maybe it seems like splitting hairs with a nitpicky and insignificant detail, but it is important to remember. Just because we are not condemned as guilty before God, does not automatically equate to perfectly keeping the command to love others. Let’s be certain, we still struggle and fall short of keeping the command of scripture to love one another, but because of God’s grace and through the sacrifice of Jesus we are no longer condemned for our failures. We have confidence before God.

to know the truth is to set our hearts at rest in his presence

All of this, John says, is what it means to belong to the truth. And what do we know because of this truth? The passage goes on in verse 19 to add to it. This is also how we know to set our hearts at rest in his presence. Those are words that our world needs to hear again and again right now. Let’s be honest, it is very difficult right now to have a heart that rests in the presence of God. People in our world right now have hearts that are turbulent, stressed, anxious, fearful, angry—all the opposite of a heart that is at rest.

It all sounds great; I would love to trade off my heart of stress and anxiety and anger for a heart that is at rest. So, what is it, then, that is holding me back from doing that? I don’t want a heart that is so wound up and uptight all the time. I want that heart which can know the peace of being at rest in the presence of God. How do I get from here to there? Because, let’s be honest, how many of us have looked at a newspaper or scrolled a newsfeed or watched a news program and had the experience feeling our jaws clench, of feeling our fists tighten, of feeling our blood pressure increase? This heart that John is describing as being at rest in the presence of God sounds amazing; but why is it we feel so very far away from anything like that?

withholding actions of love for others = withholding rest for my heart

Could it be because we are choosing over and over again to withhold our actions and expressions of Christian love from people who are so different from us? Could it be that our hearts are condemned because we simply refuse to let go of the anger and frustration we hold towards certain other people? I can never have a heart that is at rest in the presence of God until I have a heart that can truly and genuinely express actions of love especially towards people the world is telling me I should hate. This is something we desperately need to hear right now.

This is how we know that he lives in us

Look at the last phrase of this passage from 1 John today. Verse 24 says,

1 John 3:24 NIV

24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

I must admit that when I put together this sermon series way back when, it was not exactly intentional that this particular message with this particular passage fit in the calendar with this particular Sunday—Pentecost Sunday. But thankfully, God has a way of filling in the important details that I sometimes overlook. We know that Jesus lives in us because we know that he has given the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church. This is what we remember and celebrate on Pentecost. If you are not familiar with Pentecost or ever heard the story before, it comes from Acts 2.

Acts 2:1–12 NIV

1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

On the day when the Holy Spirit is given to the apostles, the Bible describes for us a scene in which the disciples go out and begin sharing the message of Jesus in all these other languages. Yes, Luke is very particular in his telling of this story to name all the other places around the known world from which these people are gathered. But there is point to that. There is a reason for this story to be the first sign of what the church of Jesus does on Pentecost because the Holy Spirit is given to them.

But the story of Pentecost is meant to draw a very particular contrast to another story in scripture. And this time it takes us all the way back to Genesis 11, the story about the tower of Babel.

Genesis 11:1–9 NIV

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” 5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Pentecost is the undoing of Babel

What it is that we commemorate on Pentecost is the undoing of Babel. The story of Babel in Genesis 11 describes for us a world in which the greedy ambitions of sinful humanity drove them into tribal factions that became divided against one another. And Pentecost is the moment in which God’s redemptive plan for his creation turns Babel completely around. In one story, the division of people in the world drive them apart. In the other story, the Holy Spirit of God takes what is divided and brings it back together in the gospel message of God’s love. We don’t really need a story like Babel to show us and convince us that we live in a broken world where people are bitterly divided against one another. We see it right in our own places of living.

yet we are still so very divided

We see it in people who feel so outraged that they gather their AR-15 assault rifles and storm their way into the capitol building in Michigan. We see it in people who take to the streets in Minneapolis because, yet again, another unarmed black man is killed by police. We are people walking in the footsteps of Babel who are divided against one another. One of these groups we might label as patriots protesting their rights. One of these groups we might label as thugs who ought to be arrested. Speaking for myself, I think those who would take assault weapons into our state capital are thugs. And speaking for myself, I think the Colin Kaepernicks of the world who kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence against African Americans, those are the real patriots.

our hearts condemn us

Right now, half of you hearing this message are thinking, Amen preacher! Preach it! And half of you hearing this message are thinking, I cannot believe he just said that! I am so insulted! And you are exactly right, because that’s the point. We are people who are so very divided against one another. We are people even right here in this church who are so very far away from Pentecost. Our hearts condemn us.

but God is greater than our hearts

But here this word from scripture today. God is greater than our hearts. Our failures to show love to one another and our shortcomings cannot undo the power of Pentecost. Our brokenness and our division cannot overpower the work of the Holy Spirit. Our sin does not close the door on God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness given for us. Pentecost marks the undoing of Babel. It was the reset button for God’s church. It was the start-over. You and I are still given the opportunity for that start-over yet today. The gift of God’s Holy Spirit is still upon his church today. You and I—broken as we may be—are loved enough by God to be given the gift of his Holy Spirit in us. And he loves us enough to give us that gift so that we can still be enabled by the Holy Spirit to show acts of love in a broken and divided world.