Today’s Good Shepherd Sunday sermon explores the question, “What does love look like?” In 1st John 3:16, we read: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
Love involves sacrifice. It involves giving up something. It involves laying down our lives for one another, for our friends and our neighbors and even our enemies, as Christ laid down his life for us. It means giving up some of our freedom to follow, like sheep being led by a shepherd. It means trusting that the Good Shepherd—the one who gives up his life for the sheep—knows the path and is leading us on it, safely home. Today’s Scripture readings are 1 John 3:16-24, the familiar words of Psalm 23, and John 10:11-18.
This sermon is adapted from my Good Shepherd Sunday sermon on April 22, 2018. Here’s the sermon podcast audio and the livestream from Christ the King.
Powered by RedCircle
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
I want you to turn to someone near you, and I want you to tell them three words. Ready?
“I love you.” If you’re online, you can put it in the chat.
Turn to someone else and tell them. With some passion now, some enthusiasm! I love you.
That might feel normal if you’re sitting next to your spouse or your child. Maybe a little different if you’re brand new here today and you have no idea who you’re talking to.
But this is what we’re supposed to, right? If you’re going to be a follower of Jesus, this is your job.
1 John 3:23: “This is God’s commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.”
So the question for today is, “What does love look like?” What does it look like to love one another?
Love is a complicated word. It means a lot of things. Even in the Bible, the English word “love” serves as the translation for at least four different words in the original Greek. I tell my kids “I love you” when I wake them up or put them down for bed. That’s different than when I tell you all I love verse 16 in today’s Scripture reading.
It’s different than when I say I love Star Wars movies, or I love pizza, or I love my wife. We’ll sing in a few minutes about Jesus being the “King of love.” Love can be a passionate, romantic desire for someone else. It can be a bond in a community or a family.
What does love look like?
That’s the question our readings today are addressing, and—spoiler alert—the love we’re exploring is not the “I love pizza or Star Wars movies” kind of love.
Did you know that when the books and letters that make up the Bible were first written, they did not have chapter or verse numbers? Chapters were added in the 1200’s and verses in the 1500’s. They’re not part of the actual Bible text, just a reference system, so don’t read too much into this, but I want to share with you a little chapter and verse coincidence. I love this 😀
Probably the most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16, right? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” God so loved the world.
Today’s reading isn’t from the Gospel of John; it’s from 1st John, this quick little letter at the back of the Bible, and First John 3:16 says this: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
John 3:16 tells us God loved the world enough to give his son for it, and 1 John 3:16 tells us what that giving looks like and how we should respond.
Love involves sacrifice. It involves putting someone else’s interests ahead of yourself. We know Jesus loves us because he gave up his life for us. Love is putting someone else in front of yourself.
It’s giving up money you’ve worked hard to earn so someone you’ll never meet on the other side of the world gets food to eat. It’s making the phone call, reaching out to a friend going through a tough time to let them know you care.
It’s sacrificing some of your time to take care of an elderly parent, or to allow a child to move back into your house.
Love for pizza is pretty different than love for God, but a lot of the other meanings of love are connected. There are similarities between the love a parent has for a child and God’s love for us, or between the way we love God and the way people who are married love their wife or husband.
I’m not going to talk much about romantic love this morning, but this could almost be a wedding sermon, right? The idea of a marriage is two people committing to love one another with their whole lives. In marriage, we talk about two people becoming one flesh, coming together to form something new.
Marriage isn’t about ceasing to be who you were before, because you bring your whole self into the relationship, but there are sacrifices that need to be made. Marriages only work when both people make some sacrifices.
Any of you give up something when you got married? My dad gave up his motorcycle when he married my mom. Or when two people each have a house, someone needs to sell when the marriage begins.
Loving someone else means respecting their priorities, sometimes above your own. Committing yourself to someone means giving up some of your freedom to be there for them. The rewards of love ought to outweigh the sacrifices, but there are sacrifices.
In a healthy relationship, those sacrifices are mutual. Sometimes this idea of sacrifice gets twisted in dating or marriage to say one person should do all the sacrificing, abandoning their dreams, or even putting up with violence or abuse. That’s not love; it’s power and selfishness and it’s sinful. It’s a distortion of love. If it’s love, it’s mutual. There’s always give and take, and different seasons in a lifetime together, but for a marriage to work, it needs to involve mutual sacrifice.
As Christians, we understand marriage as a reflection of God’s love, an imitation of God’s perfect love for us. And it is only an imitation, because we’re not capable of the kind of perfect love God has. God loves us more fully than we can comprehend.
Even when it’s not at all mutual, even when we don’t love back, when we completely fail to lay down our lives for one another, when we ignore the command to love one another, even then God’s love for us remains. God’s love for us comes before we receive it, before we believe it. As Paul writes to the Romans, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
In the gospel reading, Jesus describes love by talking about the good shepherd being the one who will lay down his life for the sheep. Others who are not the good shepherd will seem to love the sheep, but when real sacrifice is required, they’ll bail and run away. They’ll abandon the sheep.
But Jesus, the good shepherd, will never do that. He will give whatever sacrifice is needed for love. Of course the shepherd cares how the sheep feel. The shepherd wants to be in mutual relationship with the sheep, to be loved by the sheep. But when it comes down to it, the good shepherd will lay down his life for them regardless of how the sheep feel.
Have you ever taken someone to show them something you know they’ll love, but they’re not convinced?
I’m picturing a child on the way to Disney World, asking, “Are we there yet?” “I’m tired of the car.” “Let’s get out.” “I want to walk around.” And the parents saying, “No, we’re not there yet; it’ll be great when we get there. Come on, you’ll like it.” Because the parents know what’s ahead.
One of my goals for this summer is to get Micah to try a ride at the fair, to get him on a Ferris wheel or something. We failed last year because he got scared, but if I can get him over that fear, I’m sure he’ll enjoy it.
That’s how I think of the good shepherd leading the sheep in the 23rd Psalm. The shepherd knows the destination. The Creator knows the goodness of creation. The shepherd knows the beauty of the path, even though the sheep might not see it.
The Lord, our shepherd, makes us lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside still waters and on right paths.
Isn’t that a fascinating picture of God’s relationship with us? Think about how God must feel as the shepherd who loves and cares for us more than any parent cares for their children, more than a husband or wife cares for their spouse, certainly more than any actual shepherd loves their sheep.
God sees our potential for love and good, yet God also gives us the freedom to live how we choose.
God never stops loving us and gently leading us, yet we continually turn off the path we’re called to. The shepherd tells the sheep the destination, but so often we disbelieve.
We think it’s too good to be true, or that we’re not good enough. We think we know our own way. Over and over we try to turn back, to go somewhere else, or give up before we reach the destination where God is leading us.
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.
You and I can’t make the same sacrifice Jesus has made for us. We’re not called to save people; Jesus has already done that. But we are called to show love in our lives. We’re called to love our neighbors, to help our brothers and sisters in need.
We’re called to love like Jesus, and that involves some sacrifice. The kind of love God commands for us is not always easy. Loving in truth and action rather than just in word or speech costs something. It might be time, or money, or energy, or vulnerability. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable.
In a marriage, loving your spouse can be hard. In a family, loving your siblings or parents or children can be hard. Just saying “I love you” out loud can seem strange, even in a church, a community built on love! But when we understand God’s love for us, the sacrifices made for us, we can’t help loving people in need, loving our neighbors.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, you love us more than we can possibly imagine. Our ability to love is so small next to your love for us. But we want to love others. We want to live the way you call us to, sacrificing, laying down our lives for one another. By your Holy Spirit, help us to abide in you. Show us who you would have us love and serve. Thank you for your love for us.
Amen