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Loving as Christ Loved - Pastor Stiemke |
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3nd Sunday after Pentecost, ??06
In the Name of JESUS!
Sir, we would see JESUS!
Emmanuel (6/25)
John 15: 12-17
The
inspired Word of God on which I base today??s sermon is found in John
15, beginning at verse 12, the words of our loving Savior:
?¨This
is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for
his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer
do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what His master
is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from
My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose
you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit
should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may
give it you. These things I command you, so that YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER.?Æ
Beloved people of Christ, will you pray with me?
Heavenly
Father, in the gift of our Savior You have loved us with an everlasting
love that will not let us go. Through Christ Jesus, You have told us to
love one another as He first loved us. Graciously forgive us wherever
we have failed to do so. Help us by the power of the Spirit to trust
that Jesus?? love is so perfect that He already has forgiven us. As we
meditate upon Your Word this day, help us more readily to be doers of
Your Word and not just hearers by showing genuine love and concern for
all people whom our lives touch. When we fail, graciously restore us
and mend the wounds we have afflicted upon others with our neglect,
animosity and lack of love in action; for we pray in Christ??s name.
Amen.
+ + +
In the name our dear Savior, beloved children of the Heavenly Father:
I
suspect that the vast majority of us, other than our youngest children,
have heard the patriotic motto, ?¨United We Stand; Divided We Fall,?Æ
more than once in our lifetime. There??s a great deal of truth in that
patriotic line for free nations if we quickly add: ?¨We stand under
God??s blessing and forgiveness!?Æ For our Lord bluntly states in
Proverbs, ?¨Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any
people.?Æ [Proverbs 14:34] It isn??t just the news we read or hear on TV
that quickly unmasks sin and wickedness in our beloved country. No, an
honest appraisal of our actions or inactions, made with the help of the
Holy Spirit, would lead us to confess, ?¨Our own sin is a horrid shame
and disgrace. Like God??s people of old we rebel against our holy God
and do not deserve His mercy.?Æ It??s relatively easy to mouth the words,
?¨I am a sinner,?Æ without considering the degree of our own sordid
corruption. It??s hard to get beyond the surface to the depths of our
depravity.
Perhaps this may help. If I were to say to you, ?¨In a
moment I??m going to stand there in front of the altar. Everyone who
wants to come up and slap Jesus in the face and spit on Him, get in
line behind me. We??ll take turns hurting Him.?Æ How many of you would
form a line behind me to do just that? I hope no one! I trust your
reaction was a thought something like this: GOD FORBID! Yet that is
precisely what happens each time we fail to love other people in
thoughts, words, and actions, including those who have hurt our friends
and us. It occurs each time we sin against our holy and righteous God.
Jesus
not only gave us the Golden Rule, which mandates that we treat others
in the exact same way we wish to be treated. Remember also our Savior??s
clear statement, ?¨Whatsoever you have done to one of the least of these
My brothers, you have done to Me.?Æ [Matthew 25:40] When Jesus
originally spoke these words, our Savior said He would say them on the
Day of Judgment in commendation of the redeemed people of the Lord.
Christ will praise His saints because all sinful failings were cleansed
by our Savior??s blood. Nevertheless, these very words are also judgment
upon our sinful treatment of others. They remind us that it??s more than
other people we hurt. We break Jesus?? heart each time we do evil, nasty
things. Likewise when we fail to do a loving act of kindness, not do a
helpful deed nor speak an edifying word that, too, is like slapping
Jesus in the face and nailing Him once again to the cross.
You
see, beloved, we need with the Lord??s help to recognize that every
Christian ?± young and old ?± is in the midst of a terrible war ?± a
spiritual war. In that on-going conflict, Satan and all his cohorts,
the fallen world around us, and our own sinful nature are trying their
level best to lead us to hurt others and ultimately God Himself. There
is a line in a ballad from the days when I was courting my dear
wife-to-be that is true all too often, ?¨You always hurt the one you
love.?Æ This is so in each failure to love others, for we break the
heart of our dear Savior.
Tragically this occurs not only among
family and friends or among neighbors and acquaintances at work. It??s
also true within Christ??s Church on earth. Mean, ugly words and remarks
get spoken to or about other believers. Name calling and labeling of
other folks takes place. Instead of going to others who may have
wronged us to try to settle things, the gossip mill is active too much
of the time. Sometimes our telephone lines are filled with such hot,
angry, vindictive words that I wonder why the wires don??t melt. Past
hurts are nursed for all their worth, rather than truly forgiving and
loving one another in the household of faith. Instead of speaking words
that edify one another, which look at things in the best possible
light, ?¨putting the best construction on everything,?Æ in keeping with
the spirit of the 8th Commandment, we have the tendency to try to make
others look their very worst. And all this from us is nothing less that
damnable sin.
Do we ever see this quickly in others! But the
problem is not just others. It??s ME, YOU, YOU, AND YOU THAT IS ALSO THE
PROBLEM! We so quickly get defensive and full of denial. How true the
clich?à that my dear departed Dad used to often repeat as I was growing
up, ?¨The devil works the hardest where he has the most to gain ?± in the
Church!?Æ Satan doesn??t have to worry about other people. They are
already his. No wonder non-believers in their false piety view
Christians as being nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.
So,
what??s to be done? The place to start is seeking the Spirit??s help to
be honest about our own sinfulness and to confess that to our merciful
Lord. Stop thinking about other people who should be doing this.
Consider your own deep need to confess, just as I must. Jesus who
doesn??t break His promises said, ?¨Come unto Me, all you who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.?Æ [Matthew 11: 28] When we
turn to Him with sorrow for our sins, Christ has assured us, ?¨Whoever
comes to me, I will not cast out.?Æ [John 6: 37b] He will not turn away
from you. Wonder of wonders, instead of labeling us as His enemies, our
loving Savior, calls us ?± sinners that we are, ?¨Friends!?Æ And well He
can, for the very purpose of His suffering and dying was to wash all of
our sins away ?± for time and eternity! Why, now Scripture even calls us
sons and daughters of the King of heaven!
How did all this come
to be? Jesus told His disciples and us in our text today, ?¨You did not
choose Me, but I chose you.?Æ [john 15: 16a] The Bible consistently
depicts our salvation as being 100% God??s work and the Lord??s
deliverance. It was Jesus ?± all alone, who gave up His life for us. He
gained the victory over hell and death through His resurrection without
any human help. Even our coming to trust Jesus as our Savior and Friend
started with God??s changing our minds and heart. St. Paul put it this
way, ?¨No one can say JESUS IS LORD, but by the Holy Spirit.?Æ [1
Corinthians 12: 3b] What an amazing God we have who loves us so very
much and doesn??t give up on His wayward friends!
Our loving
Savior told us that He not only has chosen us to be His forgiven
friends, He went on to say, ?¨I chose you and appointed you that you
should go and bear much fruit and that your fruit remains.?Æ [John 15:
16b] How do we do that? We need to pause to humbly thank God for what
He has already accomplished among us in enabling us to love others in
our own families and elsewhere ?± especially here at Emmanuel. Our
congregation is indeed a caring gathering of the saints of God on
earth. There??s our Prayer Chain and Prayer Lists, Helping Hands, meals
prepared for ABCCM homeless clients, providing a Christian Day School
for more than our own members, so many volunteers in our overall
Christian Education programs on Sundays and weekdays and on our other
ministry teams, the Stephen Ministry, LWML, our Katrina cleanup crew,
Manna Food volunteers, Bushwhackers and the like. In my 11 years here
as a member of Emmanuel I often marvel at the caring for one another
that has taken place often behind the scenes. Without a doubt the
Spirit of the living God has been moving among us. However, none of us
is perfect until through Jesus?? grace and pardon we are called home to
our Savior??s side in heaven. Till then every one of us with God??s help
needs to grow in the grace of forgiving and loving one another,
including those who have hurt others and us.
Our blessed Savior
points to one of the Lord??s gifts to help us grow in showing Christ??s
love to others in His words to us today. Remember how Jesus said that
He has chosen us, ?¨so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He
may give it you.?Æ So, as the called servant of our Lord Jesus Christ,
let me ask you, ?¨When was the last time you prayed that YOU ?± not
someone else ?± but YOU would be helped by the Holy Spirit to show more
love in action in your life??Æ I know that many of you have been praying
that someone else would be more loving, but when did you ask that for
yourself? Certainly in love we need to pray for others?? capacity to
love more often and genuinely. However, recognizing our own sin, we
need to ask our gracious God to accomplish the same gift to be more
Christ-like in our loving others also and to blot out our fixating on
the shortcomings of others. Lord, help us so to pray!
In His
great love our Lord also arms us for battle as He nourishes us both
with the Lord??s Supper and as we spend time in His Word. When we find
bitterness within us and a tendency to keep on thinking and talking
about how others fail, it??s time to spend more time with Scripture and
faithfully to participate in worship and Holy Communion. Lord, feed us
with Your Word and Christ??s holy body and blood! Then others will note
the way Christ helps us to love one another. Then, too, we shall marvel
at how our awesome God has changed our focus from bitterness and
accusations to forgiving others, loving our Lord and one another as
Christ has loved us. Amen.
To GOD alone be glory!
© The Reverend Frederick A. Stiemke, D.D.
Vacancy Pastor, Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Asheville, NC
June 25, 2006
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 10 April 2007 )
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