“Marks of Methodism: Loves Others” 1 John 4: 7-21

A few weeks ago we got into a discussion at one of our parish Bible Studies about ways that we can stumble and go astray as disciples and as the body of Christ. We talked about all sorts of things, but one that stuck out to me is that we miss the point, miss the mark of what it means to follow Christ, when we fail to love one another, calling to mind this passage from 1 John. 

We are now in our final week of our sermon series of what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ. We’ve built this whole sermon series around the fact that you can only be a disciple Jesus if you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. From there, we who bear the name Christian are called to build lives that reflect the Truth and Power of Jesus Christ in this world. We do that by being thankful in all circumstances, by staying connected to the Vine through prayer so we can bear fruit, and loving God with all we have and all we are. The call to a life of discipleship is not always easy, but it can change the world for the Kingdom of God, my friends. 

But one of the reasons that discipleship can be hard, is if we aren’t really careful, we can slip into the mindset of “what’s in this for me?” And we can carry that mindset into our faith lives. The problem is that mindset of putting myself first, that flies in the face of what John is lifting up in today’s passage. 

John is writing to a group of believers who are getting confused by what others are teaching them. There are folks coming into the area claiming that Jesus did not come in the flesh, but instead he was just a Spirit, and therefore he couldn’t have died. In the face of these false prophets, the author wants to remind them exactly how they can figure out what is true - are they teaching to live a life that lines up with the commands of Christ, and are they proclaiming that Christians will be known by their love. 

Time and again Jesus proclaimed that believers will be known by how they love others. In fact in the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, we hear that ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. (Mark 12:33), but that doesn’t make it any easier. We start to put limits on what that love looks like - who are we love? How are we to love them? Are they to earn that love before we give it? - that distract us from this idea that Christians will be known by their love. 

Our personal relationship with God, the beginning part of what Mark is talking about in that particular verse - manifests itself in how we live our lives friends. Let me be clear, yes, I firmly believe in having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but if it is so personal that no one can tell what you believe, we’ve missed the point. If we are so caught up in the “me and Jesus” mentality, that we fail to love our neighbor. We’ve missed the point. 

Love of God and love of neighbor are deeply connected. Somewhere in my Sunday school journeys I remember learning that the cross points us to how we live our lives in the world - having a relationship with God and reaching out to our neighbors in love. And that has stuck with me. It’s in line with what I see Jesus teaching time and time again in the Gospels. And it is what John is speaking about in this letter. 

Why do we love one another? Because love is from God. In fact, God loves us so much that He sent his only son so that we could find Life, when all we knew was the death of darkness and sin. In other words, we love because God first loved us. And the way we love, who we love, should say a lot more about God than it does about us.

One of our recent confirmation lessons was built around the idea that we are blessed to be a blessing, but it could have just as easily been that we love because we are loved. We are loved with the perfect and everlasting love of Jesus Christ. And as we share that love, we ripple out into the world, like a stone that skips across the water, widening the reach of the message of the cross. 

And why? Why do we love? John puts it this way - No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. At the fellowship that I was part of for young clergy, our leader, a seasoned pastor, leader, and teacher in the church put this concept in these words - we as the church need to be able to answer the “so what” question. Why does it matter that we share the love of Jesus? What is our hope? What is the vision of God that we want to share: that through our love the grace of God may be made known, not for our sake, but for the sake of those who do not yet know Jesus. Loving isn’t about what we get out of it church. Its about making the light and truth of Jesus known.

Wesley said that those who called themselves Methodists should be “full of love to all humankind, to every child of the Father”, and from day one of the Methodist movement thats what they did. They went to the prisons to preach the good news. They gave alms for poor to have food. They preached everywhere that they could, and many places that they were prohibited, because they looked out and saw children of God - children of God who had not yet heard, who did not yet know that Jesus Christ is Lord. 

But that type of love - the love that changes hearts and lives, isn’t always easy. We are going to screw up along the way. We aren’t going to always get it right. But we trust and believe that this command that God gave us to love others, is one that we strive after by God’s grace alone, trusting in the Holy Spirit to lead up and equip us for the mission. 

There is a pastor named Frank Laubach who is talked about in the book that this sermon series is based off of Marks of Methodism. The story that is told about Frank is that every day he gets up and prays some version of the same prayer - Lord, what do you want to do in he world today that I can help you with. By praying this prayer, Frank is putting his life on the front lines of the Kingdom of God, asking that God opens up his eyes and heart for whatever work God is calling him to. To the people, God wants him to love in ways great and small through the day. Romans 12:1 embodies such a prayer, when Paul writes (Message Version)  So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

What about us, friends? Who are we being called to love? Are we asking that God uses our every day life to make the love of Christ known? May we be a people who look to God, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, to use to love with the love of Christ. Amen.