1 JOhn 3.16-24

I want to you to put on your thinking caps as we begin this morning.

I am going to read you ten statements and I want you to tell me what these ten statements have in common.

What is the theme?

What binds this thoughts together into one cohesive unit?

Here we go:

1. You shall have no other gods. 

2. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

3. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 

4. Honor your father and your mother.

5. You shall not murder. 

6. You shall not commit adultery. 

7. You shall not steal. 
8. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. 

10. 10.You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Does anyone have a guess as to what the commonality is with these 10 statements, or, as you probably know them, The 10 Commandments?

Well, if you said, “love,” you are right!

Each of the 10 Commandments that God lays out for humanity, for you and for me, is centered on thinking, speaking, and acting in love.

Commandments 1-3 are about loving God.

And,  Commandments 4-10 are about loving the people around you.

These 10 Commandments are how God measures true love in the heart.

Again, how do you measure love?

Do you measure love by the cost of the gifts that you are given?

Do you measure love by the words that someone uses when they talk to you and about you?

Do you measure love by the amount of time someone spends with you?

Do you measure love by the acts of service that someone does for you?

Or, do you measure love by the physical touch that you receive from another?

Well, in the fall of 1937, Ed Keefer was a senior in the school of engineering at the University of Toledo in Ohio. Tall, slender, and bespectacled, Keefer was the president of the calculus club, the vice-president of the engineering club, and a member of the school’s exclusive all-male honor society. He also invented the Cupidoscope.

The electrical device could not have been more perfectly designed to bring campus-wide fame to its creators, Keefer and his less sociable classmate John Hawley. It promised to reveal, with scientific precision, if a couple was truly in love. As the inventors explained to a United Press reporter as news of their innovation spread, the Cupidoscope delivered on its promise “in terms called ‘amorcycles,’ the affection that the college girl has for her boyfriend.”

Built in the school’s physics laboratory, the Cupidoscope was fashioned from an old radio cabinet, a motor spark coil, and an electrical resistor. To test their bond, a man and a woman would grip electrodes on either side of the Cupidoscope and move them toward one another until the woman felt a spark—not of attraction, but of electricity. The higher her tolerance for this mild current, the more of a love signal the meter registered. A needle decorated with hearts purported to show her devotion on a scale that ranged from “No hope” to “See preacher!”

It all sounds like a slightly painful party game—but the Cupidoscope was one experiment in a serious, decades-long quest to quantify love. This undertaking garnered the attention of leading scientists across the United States and in Europe in the early years of the 20th century, and it is memorialized most prominently in the penny arcade mainstay known as the Love Tester.

In order to measure love, Mr. Keefer used electrical current.

In this morning’s Biblical text, we are going to hear more about how God measures true love in a person’s heart, mind, and soul.

In order to hear more about how God measures love that meets his standards for perfect, true, and lasting love, we are going to hear from the disciple John’s first general letter to the Christians in the first century immediately following Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Let’s hear what John has to say about life and love together.

1 John 3:16–24 says this:

[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.

[19] By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; [20] for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. [21] Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; [22] and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. [23] And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. [24] Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (ESV)

As we have discussed, many times over the years, love is a often presented to us in the form of a verb.

That means that love is not a noun describing a feeling.

That means that love is an action word.  To love someone or something is to do something for that person or thing.

So, how do we know when someone truly loves us?

We know that someone truly loves us when that person acts intentionally, thoughtfully, purposely for our personal good.  And, in addition, those actions that demonstrate true love are often done by the other sacrificing their own good in order to benefit us.

In our main Biblical text for this morning, we are told that we know true love based on the fact that he, meaning Jesus, laid down his own life for us.

That is of course referring to Jesus’ death on Good Friday.  Jesus willingly chose the path of his own pain, suffering, and death so that we could benefit from the forgiveness of sin and righteousness that we are given through that act of pure and true love.

In the Gospel text from the lectionary for this morning, we hear about this act of sacrifice that defines true love when Jesus tells us this:

[11] I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. [12] He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. [13] He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. [14] I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, [15] just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. [16] And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. [17] For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” (John 10:11–18, ESV)

Let’s circle back for a minute.  If God considers true and perfect love to be measurable by strict adherence to the 10 Commandments, which means always putting God and others first in our thoughts, words, and actions, have you ever compared your life to the 10 Commandments and felt like a failure?

Does hearing the 10 Commandments lead you to know that you have failed to live and love as God desires you to?

This happens because you realize that:

At times, you have chosen to love others things or people more than God.

At times, you have used God’s name in vain.  Does the term “OMG,” or, “Oh my God!,” slide way too easily off of your tongue?

At times you have chosen not to keep the Sabbath Holy by going to church.  Instead, you have willfully chosen to sleep in or attend a sporting event on a Sunday morning.

At times, 

• you have chosen to be angry, 
• you have chosen to gossip, 
• you have chosen to entertain sexual thoughts about another human being, 
• you haven’t been content with what God has given you and wished that you had the possessions or life of another.

Maybe, when you read or hear the 10 Commandments, you feel like the band Convictions, who pretty much penned a psalm comparable to King David’s psalms, as they say this in their new single,  “Sleeping Lotus,”

Stagnant, complacent

Anxiеty’s chokehold pulls me down

A tattered lily amongst the dancing waters

Iridescent beauty waiting to be found

I’ve grown restless, searching through the darkness

Longing to prove myself (And rise out of the dirt)

A glimmer of hope dampened by constant defeat

Reaching through oblivion

God set me free

I feel weightless, I’m falling under

An endless dream, eternal slumber (Slumber)

I’m lost, I’m too far gone (Too far gone)

Show me a sign so I can follow your every word (Your every word)

Lost sight of who I am

God, no one understands (Understands)

Encompassed heart, time ticks away

A weathered seedling

I wither and decay

God, water these roots and drown out the doubt

Nourish my purpose

Turn me inside out

Illuminate your design

I’ll leave the old me behind

If you are feeling the burden of your sin that has kept you and is keeping you now from loving God and loving others,, here is the good news: 

as you find yourself staring at true love measured by the 10 Commandments and exemplified in the person and work of Jesus, coming to know that you will never be able to measure up to God’s standards, Jesus graciously says this to you, in Matthew 5:17–20:

[17] “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. [18] For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. [19] Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. [20] For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (ESV)

So, when Jesus says, “It is finished!,” to you from the cross, He is telling you that a perfect life has been lived according to God’s commandments, or, standards for life and love.

And, Jesus is telling you that by faith, “It is finished!,” for you!

Through faith in Him, you are completely united with Jesus and everything that He has and is, becomes 100% yours!

That means His track record of a perfectly lived life following every one of God’s commandments, perfectly loving God and perfectly loving others, becomes your track record, and, therefore, that is the life that God will measure you by when it comes time to meet Him face-to-face.

It is only through being united to Jesus through faith in Him that you will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” on the last day.

And, what is the result of being loved by such a generous, sacrificial and unconditional love?

The result of being loved by such a generous, sacrificial and unconditional love is to go out and love others with that real Jesus love with which he first loved us.

That is to say, real love changes you.

Caring and sharing is the result of real love.

Jesus cared for you and therefore shared his life, death, and resurrection with you.

He gave you his earthly life so that you have a perfect record of loving God and loving others.

He gave you his death so that your own earthly record of not perfectly loving God and not perfectly loving others can be forgiven.

And, He gave you his resurrection life so that the power that Sin and Death had on to, to continue making you love yourself more than God or others, can be broken today, tomorrow, and forever.

As we heard Jesus say a few minutes ago, the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.

So, I encourage you, with the new life you have been given in Christ through God’s great and endless love for you, walk the walk don’t just talk the talk this week.

Go, this morning, in the freedom you have been given through faith in Christ, and speak, think, and act in ways that love God and love others unconditionally.

God, the Creator and Redeemer of all things, considers you somebody to love.

Go, and respond by considering God somebody to love and the people around you somebodies to love.

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Pastor Fred Scragg V.

April 21, 2024.