Our Sermons

Bible Passage: John 13:31-35
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  March 29, 2023

Erin grew up with two parents who seemed to get along quite fine, but unfortunately her mother would often use love in order to manipulate her. With this model of love, Erin grew to seek love by learning to behave in certain ways. She often felt guilty and confused. She knew that her mother loved her, but felt as if she were constantly walking on eggshells around her. As she grew older she began to notice that her father would take a lot of verbal abuse. Her mother needed to control the narrative, however, and would often lie to maintain control or paint herself in a good light. Shortly after Erin left the house, they divorced. When Erin got married, she swore that she would not love like her mother. But one night when she and her husband began to fight, he told her that he didn’t know how he was supposed to act around her. When she washed her face before bed, she caught her mother’s reflection in the mirror.

Eric was a competitive young boy, and his dad made sure he understood that winning is what matters. If not by words, but his actions. With this achievement-based model of love, Eric learned quickly that dad loved him best when he performed well. His dad took him out for ice cream with a smile when he played well and drove him home in silence after a poor game. Dad became his coach in middle school and soon he found himself wondering if he loved him as much as the boys who were more skilled. In highschool, when Eric didn’t make the varsity squad, he and his dad grew distant. No more basketball meant nothing to talk about. When he left the house, Eric promised himself he would not love pride himself based on his performance. However, after getting laid off from his first job, he couldn’t shake a feeling of worthlessness. After a few failed interviews, he yelled in frustration: “Why am I so useless!?” It shocked him to hear his father’s words coming out of his own mouth.

Natalie was a bright young girl. She loved to draw and read. She loved going to church and often impressed her parents with the depth of her faith at a young age. But then she got a smartphone. She could put two and two together and saw that the algorithms naturally favored the most attractive people. And so she cultivated her own image, dressing beyond her age, using filters, and photoshop apps. As her online presence grew, her real life relationships began to recede. With an impersonal, sexual-based model of love, she was brainwashed by culture she was so desperate to appeal to. She lost the ability to think for herself and began regurgitating trendy, quasi-moral phrases at her parents. She hated that they took her to church and, unsurprisingly, 1 hour in God’s Word was not enough to overcome the 30 hours she spent on her phone each week. After highschool she went away from her home and her church and she left her family and her faith behind as well. One night after yet another empty encounter with a guy at college, she saw that she had received a text from her mother with a Bible verse and the words, “I love you.” Natalie remembered that young girl who once loved going to church, and decided that she was going to get reacquainted with her Savior.

There’s a quote from a seminary class on educational methodology that has always stuck with me. Our seminary professor opened with these words on the very first day of the class. He said, “You need to study educational methodology, because everyone has a teaching model whether they know it or not and whether it is effective or not.” Those words struck me because it certainly seems wise to understand which model is most effective in teaching rather than simply using one you adopt out of ignorance. The truth is that this reasoning  also applies to the way you love. We don’t may often realize it, but we love based on the models of love that we know. Naturally, we gravitate toward showing love in the same well-worn ways that we’ve experienced love in our own lives. But here’s the rub, we love based on these models whether they are healthy or not, whether they are god-pleasing or not. We need to consciously base our love on a good model, or else we will adopt one out of ignorance. Thankfully, tonight our Savior gives us himself as a model for love, and even sends us his Holy Spirit through the Word to empower us in this model of love.

We continue our series Three Words of Truth with the new command that Jesus gave to his disciples on the night he was betrayed: “Love One Another.” Now that may not sound new to us, but what makes this command “new” is that Jesus didn’t just repeat the golden rule. He doesn’t tell us to use ourselves as the model, as in “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Instead, he says: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” 

I think people assume that we are great at loving ourselves, but that is not true at all, is it?. Thanks to our sinful nature, we often devalue ourselves, and we do things which are terribly harmful and unhealthy to ourselves, things that we would not want other people to do to themselves. I’d say we are certainly selfish, as in obsessive and hyperfocused on ourselves. But are we really that good at loving ourselves? Not necessarily. I don’t mean to say that the Bible’s so-called “golden rule” is not worth repeating, but I will contend that loving our neighbors as ourselves can lead to actions that are quite cruel in a sinful world. But Jesus gives us a new command, that we are to love one another and this love is to be based, not on our love for ourselves, but on his perfect love for us. This is the new model that comes from the gospel. There is no true love for another or even an understanding what true love is apart from knowing what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. As John would later write: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

That night in the upper room, Jesus would demonstrate this love in a myriad of ways. In the loving leadership of following God’s command of celebrating the Passover. In the institution of the Lord’s Supper, the gift of his love which we enjoy to this day. In the humble act of footwashing, infinitely beneath his statues and authority. He would demonstrate this love in allowing Judas to betray him. He would demonstrate this love by patiently teaching his disciples and promising to send the Holy Spirit. He would demonstrate this love with his long and fervent prayers for his disciples on the very night when they would abandon him. Not even to mention his degrading and excruciating suffering and innocent death on the cross the following day, we can sense the weight of these words: “As I have loved you so you are to love one another.”  What a Savior we have, not just a model for our love, but the one who sanctifies our love. Who takes the blame for our shallow and selfish love, for all our sin and shame. Who forgives us time and time again, and calls us to love people even as he does and will continue to love us through eternity itself.

Jesus’ love originates from himself, not those whom he loves. Jesus’ love is based on God’s will, not human desire. This is how we are to love one another. This means that, contrary to my own thoughts and opinions about another, my love for them originates from Jesus. It is as if Jesus stands between me and my neighbor. I do not love them as something to be achieved, to be used, or to be enjoyed. I love them simply because I know how Christ loved me and humbly serves my soul. And, accordingly, this love more than any other outward indication will show them the face of my Savior. 

Now, is this love going to be easy? No. Or, and here’s the hardest part, is this love always going to be appreciated? No. Think about Jesus’ love on this night he was betrayed… The idea of Christ-like love in the abstract sounds so beautiful and virtuous. But the reality of loving a sinful person—that all-too-real, exasperating person that we would not have chosen and might prefer to avoid—doesn’t always look so beautiful or feel so nice. But the truth is that the power of idealized love is just that: an ideal; it is imaginary. But the power and beauty of Christ’s love is real. And it is revealed in the self-dying call to love the sinners whom God has placed in your life. Just as Christ loved you, the glory of your love will shine most when it is costly and inconvenient, when it is misunderstood, or even tread upon the ground. Even if those you love abandon, deny, or betray you. You have an opportunity to show others the love of Christ, especially when it’s messy and hard. This is our God-given, gospel-driven model of love which reflects the heart of Christ himself. As he said, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Amen.