Holy Baptism of Seth & Wayne Burton and Jonathan Womack
Readings: Proverbs 9:1-10 | 1 John 3:13-18 | Luke 14:15-24
Text: 1 John 3:13-18
The word “love” has taken on a life of its own. It’s as if everyone has their own private dictionary of what they want it to mean. So many interpret it simply as an emotion, and a shallow emotion at that. The word “love” is the same as strong affection—I have good feelings toward you because you put butterflies in my stomach, but as soon as that euphoria wears off, then I can just as easily despise you and cast you off. Love is a strong emotion, but that’s only a narrow slice of what love encompasses. Love means you do what I want you to, stay out of my way, and cheer me on in whatever I pursue.
The trouble is that love is a biblical word. This confusion has been behind much of the false teaching in that assaults the Church in our day. You’ve probably heard—even from my sermon—about the takeover of the United Methodist “Church” by those who have forced a 180 on biblical morality. Another false teacher is at work in the Church of the Nazarene, Jay Oord. He is campaigning for the Nazarenes should affirm LGBTQIA+ and include them without repentance. His reasoning is that Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
With this twisting of the word “love” into “affirm,” He sets this mandate above all else, even when it is contradicted by the Lord’s own Word that says, “Male and female [God] created them” and “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 1:27, 2:24) and “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). No amount of feelings or human convictions can overturn our Creator’s intention! No amount of smooth reasoning or charismatic appeal can change sin into something good in God’s sight.
But back to love itself. It all starts with God, who loves. We still have some idea in our conscience of what love actually is. Sometimes the trouble in learning God’s love is we have been burned by man. Man’s love is fickle, man’s love is finite. Man’s love is fallible, no matter how strong or devoted.
No matter how distorted our understanding of love is, God teaches us what love truly is: “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.” Here is the true gold standard for love: our Lord Jesus Christ. He is Almighty, and yet He washed His disciples’ feet. He is a King, and yet wore the form of a servant and was beaten for others’ crimes. He was immortal and infinite, and yet to seek us He entered this world. God became flesh. While we were yet sinners, God the Son died for us. [Romans 5:8]
In these actions, we learn what love is. It’s not just a feeling, although the emotions are involved. Not just a word, although the Word of God is living and active. Love is not a passive thing, but a movement of the heart that pours out in self-sacrificing action. This is what parenting teaches us. The measure of a good parent is that they love their children self-sacrificially. John 3:16 gives us a fitting definition of love: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” [New King James] Call this not just love, but divine love.
But there’s a problem when it comes to us and divine love. God made us for love, and even commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” At the start for all of us, God loved us by giving His own Son into death that we might be justified—to receive the divine love of Jesus’ death and resurrection in repentance and faith. This is why Baptism is such a beautiful picture of God’s grace toward us. He gives to Seth and Wayne and all the baptized the death of Jesus on the cross—“All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death” Together with that also comes the resurrection of Jesus, which begins to change us even now: “in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4)
Now that you are baptized, you are an heir of the new creation (Revelation 21). “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) The Holy Spirit, who came to us in Baptism and abides in all who believe, works to restore a right understanding of love in us, how we also were created to love.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
You can see that love is not just a passive thing, to be received from God. That’s where it all springs from—which is why Jesus compares Himself to a Vine, and us as branches. Charity is just one example of that divine love bearing fruit in us, but there are many more. You will see these fruits in other places as God is renewing you from the inside out.
But will our love ever be perfectly like God’s love? Will we without fail fulfill the Lord’s mandate to “Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind; and our neighbor as ourselves.” [Matthew 22:37-40] No, we won’t. That’s why we continually flee to Jesus. When we read passages like this in John, it’s normal to feel a pang of guilt. Would we be willing to give the shirt off our back in every circumstance? There were mitigating circumstances, we try to say—it would be wasted, we couldn’t spare the money, we were too busy. The long and short of it is that we have failed to love our brothers as we ought. We have failed to fear, love, and trust in God as we ought. We need Jesus, and like a vine to the branches, we can do nothing on our own. [John 15:6]
So, we gladly receive daily His love: “As a called and ordained servant of the Word, I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Amen.
Now, we stand and pray Psalm 51:10-12 in song, and God grant this new heart to us daily.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
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