First Sunday after Trinity

1 John 4:16-21 Text

A lovely Christian text, full of love and abiding

1 John 4:16–21 ESV

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Wait a minute: a liar? That doesn’t belong in my positive, upbeat reading from 1 John. I don’t remember

Surely that isn’t me. But John wrote this to Christians and should give us pause -

What does not loving your brother look like?

If I asked you to picture what not loving your brother looks like....who comes to mind? At least you’re not them.

I’ve never killed a guy. I’ve never seduced anyone. I don’t steal things from people. I love my neighbor pretty good. I have only ever told one lie, and it’s this: I have never told a lie. Not only that, but I am faithful. I am here after all. I love God. Things are pretty good, I have a lovely family, good friends...

I don’t help the homeless people pan-handling on the off-ramp, but they’re probably just scamming people. To help is to hurt. Now, there are people I disagree with, sometimes friends, sometimes the people sitting a few pews away from me, the republicrats, but I don’t hate them, they’re just idiots. My buddy agrees with me, we were talking about them behind their back.

Maybe loving my brother is harder than I thought. It is easy to dismiss others as unloving, to focus on the faults of others, and to forget our own sins. Sometimes I’m angry and I don’t want to love my brother, he said or did something I didn’t like. What does that mean as far as what John says? Am I a liar?

The more dangerous pitfall here is not anger, but indifference toward neighbor

Practical example: Luke 16:19-31

The Rich man is well dressed and well fed

The Poor man is starved and covered with sores

Hoped for the fallings from the table of the poor man, but, given his station, he is overlooked. The rich man doesn’t care, his friends are coming over.

Whether or not this man believed he was faithful is not said in this text, but to reject and care not for his brother is the same thing as rejecting God.

This is not a life of love, but lovelessness, and he finds himself separated and in torment, the hereafter just as loveless.

Now from a long way off, he sees Lazarus, but look at what he says:

Luke 16:24 ESV

And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’

and again:

Luke 16:27 ESV

And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—

A life of indifference toward your neighbor is not a Christian life. The one who says he loves God but hates his brother is a liar.

Christ’s obedience and Love

Not only do you have a good clear example in Luke of what hating your brother looks like, but you have also been given a clear example of what abiding in love, abiding in God, and God abiding in him looks like. You have been given Christ.

In the ways that you hate your brother, in all the ways that you forget, or reject, or are indifferent, he doesn’t.

He doesn’t hate, but takes on the flesh of his enemies and dies at their hands all the while praying that God work forgive them.

He doesn’t forget, but remembers completely and perfectly Moses and the Prophets and he keeps his promise to Abraham for you

He doesn’t reject you, but washes you pure and clean as his people.

This is the opposite of indifference. This is profound care that Christ has for you. The perfect obedience and love that the Son has for the Father is manifested in him crucified for you, burying you by baptism into his own death and saving you with water and the word, but uttering forgiveness into your ears again and again, by feeding forgiveness to your own flesh with his body and blood broke and shed and given freely.

You are a far cry from this kind of love…but not exactly. You are baptized into this love. You hear this love. You eat and drink this love.

Much like this part of 1 John is how he opens his letter

1 John 1:5–2:1 ESV

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Repent and believe the good news dear friends. You are forgiven. As his called and chose people, those who abide in him and he in you, forget not your brother, but love as you have been loved.

Amen.