Pastor Dave Kepple

Text:   John 13:31-35

Title:    “Saved By Love”

Date:   May 6, 2007   (5^th Sunday in Easter)

Internet Link for primary scripture texts used in this sermon:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jOHN%2013:31-35&version=31

                A meditation on the gospel, leading into the Sacrament of Holy Communion

            This is usually a very long part of the service – and we’re gonna take it real slow this morning.

            Just kidding!

            Actually, I learned something interesting about my preaching at the Men’s Breakfast yesterday – something I did not know.

            It turns out one of our members has been timing my sermons for quite a while; in fact, she reported to those at our breakfast table the average length of my messages: 17 minutes. I don’t want to identify this person, but I will tell you her initials are Debbie Simpkins.

            Anyway, 17 minutes sounds pretty reasonable to me, for an average. I know some pastors tend to preach a bit longer – maybe even as long as 40-45 minutes. But when I was back

in seminary, I remember my preaching professor, Dr. Kendall McCabe, said there wasn’t any gospel message we shouldn’t be able to cover in 13 minutes. And one of the other professors at United said a sermon should be like a bikini – long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting.

            Today’s message is about the love of God in Christ Jesus – the kind of love Jesus talks about in John 13.

On the one hand, how could I ever adequately cover that subject? But on the other hand -- when it comes right down to it -- all I really have to do is point to the cross. It is there that the love of God for this world and every person created in His image was revealed in what has become the “hinge-moment” of our entire history.

The gospel lesson today is from a chapter which tells of the evening Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples. He has shared a final meal with them. He has done the unthinkable – bending over with a towel and basin in hand and washing their feet – tending to them as a lowly servant. In doing so, He is demonstrating what it means to be one of his followers. But Judas has already turned away, and he leaves the supper in order to complete his betrayal of the Lord.

So we come to this passage where Jesus issues “a new command” to those who break bread with him. He tells them to love one another. But then comes the kicker: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love another.”

As Jesus has loved us -- that’s how we are to love.

            This is a call to a different kind of love – a supernatural love that only becomes possible when we give our hearts fully to Jesus. And even then it will be a challenge, because we are frail human beings in a broken, sinful world. But when we experience that saving grace of Jesus Christ in our hearts – and invite him to be Lord of our lives each and every day – then we can become vessels for God’s love. Then and only then.

            We are saved by love – the love of God in Christ Jesus. There’s nothing we can do to “earn” this love and the gift of eternal life in Christ. All we can do is accept the free grace, poured out in the blood of Jesus Christ.

            John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement back in the 18^th century, had been an Anglican priest for 10 years, but he did not feel the all-encompassing embrace of God’s love – even as he tried to extend that Truth to others. As a matter of fact, John Wesley had returned home to England after a failed missionary trip to the American colony of Georgia, and he was deeply troubled about the state of his own soul.

            And then one evening in 1738, he had a very strange but wonderful experience, as he recorded in his journal. Although his heart wasn’t in it, he had gone reluctantly to a church meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. Someone there was reading Martin Luther’s preface to the New Testament book Romans. It was about quarter-‘til’-nine. One of the speakers was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ. That’s when John Wesley’s life was changed forever, and the Methodist movement was born. As Wesley wrote later:

            “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

             At long last, the gospel of Jesus Christ had become personal to Mr. Wesley. He could feel Christ’s love for him, and the overwhelming grace of God, flooding his soul. Nothing would ever be the same.

            It never is – once we recognize what Jesus Christ has done for us, and we say yes to his call on our life – a call to love and service.

            Living out that kind of love in our daily lives doesn’t always come easy. Like anything else, it takes practice – and a lot of prayer.

            That reminds me of a story I read about another church. A high school boy came home from choir practice early one evening. His Dad asked, “What brings you back so soon?”

            “We had to call off choir practice this week,” the boy said. “The organist and the choir director got into a terrible argument about how to sing ‘Let There Be Peace On Earth’ . . . so we quit for tonight.”  (1)

             Hmmmm – a new command: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

            Jesus goes on to say – on this final night of his earthly life – these words from John 15:

            “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”  (John 15:13-14)

            The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, born unto us a Savior.

            He showed us how to live, and He showed us how to love. And there is no greater power in this world than the power of God’s love.

            It has the power to renew hope, when all hope is gone.

            It has the power to restore faith, when all faith is broken.

            It has the power to redeem, through the amazing grace of Jesus Christ on the cross.

            There is wonder-working power in what Jesus did for us that day on Calvary – a power that continues to reverberate here and around the world in 2007.

            What kind of love is this? It’s hard to put into words, but maybe we begin to approach it when we speak of “unconditional love.” Or, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church, it is a “love that surpasses knowledge.”  (Eph. 3:19)

             Seventeen minutes?  I couldn’t say enough in 17 days about the love of God in Christ Jesus.

            Getting nervous?  Don’t worry – we’re on the home stretch!

            In 1 John 4:19, the apostle John writes, “We love because he first loved us.”

            Notice the cause and effect relationship there. We aren’t to “love” because the Bible says so or because it’s the nice thing to do, or even because we necessarily want to. We love because of what God has already done for each of us personally, saving us with the radical love of Christ Jesus hanging on the cross. We love because God’s love is already flowing into our lives.

            Many years ago, a great preacher named Henry Drummond put it this way in a classic sermon called “The Greatest Thing in the World.” Drummond wrote that the more time we spend with Christ, the more we become like Him in all things, including His love.

            “Our heart is slowly changed,” Drummond noted. “Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ’s character, and you will be changed . . . There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as He laid down himself, all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary, and you must love Him. And loving Him, you must become like Him. Love begets love.”  (2)

            I think what Jesus was saying to his disciples that last night is simply this: Love isn’t really love until you give it away.

            So let’s obey this new command Jesus gave us.

            Let’s love one another, as He has loved us.

            And for God’s sake, let’s pass it on. It’s too good to keep to ourselves.

            Amen.

Editor’s Note:  In case anyone’s wondering, Debbie timed this one at 15 minutes!

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1. David E. Leininger, “Sounds Just Like Mom,” http://www.presbyterianwarren.com/soundmom.html
2. Henry Drummond, “The Greatest Thing in the World,” http://www.btinternet.com/~a.ghinn/thegreatest.htm