“The love of God is this, that we
obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” Those commands are that we love the Lord our
God with all our hearts, souls, strength, and minds. And also, we are to love our neighbors as
ourselves. They aren’t so hard. This is easy stuff, the things God wants us
to do. It’s not difficult.
Oh yes it
is says
blogger and Denver pastor Jodie-Renee Adams who writes for a blog called “the
hardest question.” In her reading of 1st
John 5, she calls “time-out.” On this
business of commands not being burdensome she says, “Not to quibble with the
best friend of the Messiah, [John], but I’ve never found it easy to do either
of those things [love the Lord with all my heart or love my neighbor as
myself].[i] Fpr her, the hardest question is how do I
know a child of God? How do I know if I am child of God and how do
I recognize someone else as a child of God?
She goes on to wonder if the determining factor is love - ongoing
relational love that costs in a big way.
Are we only truly living life as God’s children when we love
sacrificially?
The tension here is inescapable. We want to read God’s word and believe it is
completely true and trust that it speaks directly into our lives. I think it does in 1st John 5. But as we talk about the connection of love
and obedience and we realize that it is impossible to be obedient on our own –
our obedience to God is directly tied to the way we interact with people around
us – and we have to admit that this can get complicated and messy.
Love is seen in our obedience. The primary commands Jesus gave were to love
God and love neighbor. Problem #1 - our
sins keep us from loving God much of the time.
Problem #2 - Sin in general – our own and our neighbors’ make it
horribly hard to love those neighbors. Problem
#3 – there are forces of spiritual darkness that will strive to lead us as far
away from loving relationships as possible.
Yet, First John not only says that love and
obedience go together but also that Jesus’ commands are not burdensome. Maybe another word is in order. We’re talking about relational love
here. Is relational love costly?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was
executed in a Nazi prison camp for plotting to assassinate Hitler, wrote many
books. His most famous is called The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer reflects on the words of Jesus in the
Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said the
following.
“I say to you, do not resist an evil doer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn the other also” (Matthew 5:39).
“If anyone … [takes] your coat, give your cloak
as well” (v.40).
“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also
the second mile” (v.41).
“I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for
those who persecute you” (v.44).
These commands – expressions of radical,
sacrificial neighbor love – are burdensome, not easy. Bonheoffer got it right when he said it costs
to be Jesus’ disciple. There is no room
for a cheap grace. Jesus’ kingdom is not
a place where I say the right words or pray the right prayer and thus assure
myself of heaven, but live in such a way that it is obvious that Jesus has no
influence over me in this life. We
follow a Savior who commands that we love the unlovable and take up our crosses
and die to self. Whatever First John 5:3
means, we cannot accept that the commands of Jesus are not burdensome.
Yet, Christian Philosopher and popular author
Dallas Willard says we most definitely can and must embrace these commands and
when we do, things in life actually lighten up.
Willard grants that Bonheoffer wrote a masterful attack on cheap grace.[ii] He agrees with much of what Bonhoeffer
said. However, Willard goes on to say
that if discipleship is costly, the cost of non-discipleship is even
greater. “Nondiscipleship costs abiding
peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in
light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in
the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand
the forces of evil.”[iii] The one who chooses to not follow Jesus and
obey his commands goes without all these good things and misses out on the
abundant life Jesus promised.
Where Dietrich Bonheoffer turns to Matthew 5,
the Sermon on the Mount to show how much Jesus demands, Dallas Willard turns to
Matthew 11 to show how light life is when we meet the demands of the
master. Jesus said, “Come to me all you
that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”
(11:28-30).
Back and forth it goes. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount– “be perfect
as my father in heaven is perfect.”
First John, God’s commands are not burdensome. Dietrich Bonheoffer – we must yield ourselves
to costly, sacrificial discipleship.
Dallas Willard – when we obey God we discover an easy yoke and a light
burden. Contemporary blogger Jodie-Renee
Adams – if the yoke is easy and the burden light, why is loving my neighbor so
gosh-darned difficult? First John – “By
this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his
commands” (5:2).
How? How
do we live as children of God? How do we
love the children of God? Who are
they? If we’re not sure who they are, should
we love everybody just we won’t overlook the children of God? The answer to that question is yes. Love everyone and especially those we don’t
to love.
Last week, I finished up by challenging each of
us to identify those who we find it most difficult to love. I finished saying,
Who do you find it impossible to
love? Your next door neighbor? Homosexuals?
Arch conservatives? Who can you
simply not love because the enmity
and hate is too deep? Muslims? Terrorists?
Communists? The father who abused
you? The one who broke up with you just
before the wedding? The child who did
become the person you thought he should?
Democrats? Republicans? Drug addicts?
Convicted child molesters?
As we pray, in your mind, see in your
mind the person you find it impossible to love.
Ask God to show you how you will actively love that person this week.
Consider
the ways Jesus actively loved people.
He was with his disciples, probably
on a bit of a vacation up North, away from the crowd away from the
predominantly Jewish areas, when a Syrophoenician woman came. She was a gentile and Jesus told her he came for
the Jews, but she persisted. She
expressed certainty that he could help her and seeing her faith, he healed her
daughter of demon possession. On this
occasion did not want to be bothered.
But he let himself be bothered because he was full God’s
compassion. He healed the gentile
woman’s daughter as if she were a daughter of God because that’s exactly what
she was. Jesus listened. The woman
appealed to him in faith, and he listened. See
Mark 7:24-30.
A stop in another non-Jewish region,
Samaria, brought him into contact with a woman who had been turned out by five
husbands and was now living under the roof of a man who wouldn’t even grant her
a marriage. Jesus, a Jewish man,
listened to the heart of this Samaritan woman.
He considered her. She wasn’t
just a rejected, lonely woman. She had
ideas about moral propriety. She had
ideas about ecclesiology and theology.
Jesus listened to her, and to her, Jesus revealed the gospel truth and
it is in spirit and in truth that we worship God whether we are in Samaria,
Judea or somewhere else. To this broken,
cast-out woman, Jesus stopped. He
considered worthy of his time. See John 4.
At the end of Mark chapter 10, Jesus
is leading the disciples and the crowds in a determined march to
Jerusalem. All in the procession knew
Passover was upon them and they would spend it in the city of David. Only Jesus knew the festivities would include
him hanging on a cross. Yet, as they
walked along, Jesus stopped to listen to the voice of Bartimaeus, a blind
beggar. “Son of David, have mercy on
me.” The crowd told the pathetic man in
rags to shut up and get out of the way.
And there wasn’t a thing poor Bartimaeus could do about it. Completely powerless, all he had was a voice,
and when he was told to quiet down, he shouted louder. Jesus called him. Not only did he call him, but Jesus peered
into Bartimaeus’ soul. On his way to die
for the sins of humanity, Jesus made time to stop and listen. Jesus commended the blind man’s faith and
restored his sight. The one cast aside
and treated as dirt was now a sighted man and a new disciple, and Mark tells us
he joined the procession. See Mark 10:46-52.
In these and other accounts, Jesus
shows us how to live out what is taught in 1st John 5. He noticed people – blind men, begging
women. He stopped. Even when going somewhere important, he
stopped to help others because people matter in God’s scheme of things. He considered others. Think about someone you might know who it
appears doesn’t have much to offer the world.
Jesus disagrees. He considers
everyone. He notices, stops, considers,
and listens. How do we love
everybody? We look around us, notice,
stop, consider, and listen.
I agree with Jodi-Renee Adams. It is hard to love God and love
neighbor. Sin makes it hard. But I also see Dallas Willard’s point that when
we do what Jesus says, we discover that life is beautiful and good, and loving people
with the love of Jesus feels wonderful and invigorating. To obey his commands and love the children of
God makes our lives better, and why shouldn’t it? He promises that we will have an abundant
life in which his joy is made complete.
To love, we do what Jesus did and do
what he said. Stop. Notice.
Consider. Listen. Spend
time. Go the extra mile. Receive the pain of the wounded soul and
return love for pain, beauty for ashes, grace for injury, and gladness for
mourning and grief.
What does it cost? Everything that is in us. To truly love as Jesus loves costs us
everything.
What do we gain? First John 5:4-5: “Whatever is born of God
conquers the world. And this is the
victory that conquers the world, our faith.
Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is
the Son of God.”
May we embrace costly discipleship. May we live under the easy yoke and the
difficult but unburdensome commands of Jesus.
May we go out and conquer the world by loving the children of God.
AMEN
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