Love of God

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Galatians 5:1
Galatians 5:13-25

¹ It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  ¹³ You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. ¹⁴ The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

¹⁶ So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. ¹⁷ For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

¹⁹ The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. ²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ^[1]

 

When I took diakonia classes, one of the instructors there set a tone that lasted throughout the two years for new students.  There were two things that he had said that we used often in class and for many of us, well beyond graduation, which was in 2006.  These things that he said have carried me through many tough times and many wonderful times.  I remember the first time I had to do a visitation for my diakonia class, when I was scared, feeling like I could not do this, not on my own, no way.  June, what a blessing you have been to me.  June Smith has been so wonderful from day one to me when I first visited her.  She took me from “having to” do a visitation for class to wanting to be part of visitation with June, Bill and now others. Visitations are no longer a “have to” but a “want to”.

It was in 2007 that I first became your deacon.  Many of you were here when I did my first sermon, Mother’s day of 2007.  I don’t know if you recall that day but I recall it as if it were yesterday.  My knees were shaking, my stomach was turning and my mouth was so dry.  I think I sweat as much that day as I would have walking through death valley in August.  The sweat really started after I said, “I would tell my kids to suck it up”.  It was at that point I looked at my wife and saw the look of surprise in her face.  Pastor Ben had told me that he tries not to use that word in the pulpit.  Sorry Pastor, I did it again.

What has held me through?  What is the common thread here between what has held me through family issues, spiritual issues, first sermon, being part of this wonderfully loving community, seminary and now my upcoming internship with First English Lutheran Church, Platteville WI?  What is the common thread between all of this and the Galatians text?……

Love, Love, Love, it is all about the Love, the love of God and the love of Christ.  God’s love is so extravagant for us that God, after sending the Son, sent the Spirit to be with us always.

 

Pastor Ben when he was my instructor said often, “It is all about the Love.”  We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  This is not simply loving them, loving you or me, this is not simply loving as a sacrificial love in something we give but it is also something we receive.  If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we learn the love God has for us, we learn to respect and love ourselves.  By becoming truly aware of the love God has for us,  we learn to love ourselves and from that we experience the fruits of the Spirit that Paul tells us about.  What was the first fruit that Paul’s tells us?  Yes, you got it!  Love, Love and with that we experience; “… joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control.”^[2]

Let me tell you a story about peace, patience, self-control all coming out of the Love of God.  There was seminary student on his way to preach one Sunday at Chancy Lutheran Church.  When they left the seminary lot, the car had a low tire pressure light on.  Thinking nothing much of it, he stopped at a gas station to fill up.  About five miles down the road, the light came on again.  Knowing that this was not a good sign, he stopped and looked at the tire, only to find it was almost completely flat.  He was dressed in his suit and now about to change the tire on the side of the road, all along not wanting to be late to service or get dirty before service began.

After removing everything from the back of the car to get to the spare tire, he jacked up the car.  Then all of a sudden the car fell off the jack.  Being frustrated, what he wanted to do was throw the jack, the lug wrench and spare tire into the grass.  However, patience and self-control won out.  Next he had to get the tire off but….I could not find the lug lock.  Again, you know what I really wanted to do?  However, eventually I found the lock and was able to change the tire.  After the event I realized that I was peaceful, had not lost control and maintained patience during the event.  In the end, I arrived thirty minutes later than I had planned but still fifteen minutes before the person who was to open up the church.

The people of Chancy were as loving to me the day I preached there, as you all have been from day one here.  You all have been the embodiment of the Holy Spirit to me from day one.  Your love, your support and prayers for my family and myself have been the fruits of the Spirit.  These have carried us through and will continue to do so.

When we truly love one another, truly do this, when we can see ourselves in the eyes of the stranger, be with them and part of their lives, in the good times and the bad times.  When this happens we can say that we experience God breaking through to the here and now, the kingdom of God now on earth.  It is then that the fruits come flowing in an the sinful nature is stifled by the Spirit.

Caution here, DO NOT THINK, for a single minute that we do not participate in this process.  We cannot do this on our own but neither does the Spirit.  What I am speaking of here is cooperation with the Spirit.  God will not interfere with us in anyway.  We have been given free choice.  Are you willing to accept that responsibility?  Are we willing to accept this awesome responsibility to cooperate with the will of God for us in the Spirit?  This is not to be confused with works in anyway.  We, yes, you me and each and every human being has a responsibility with our free will.  Do we want to be part of the kingdom of God or not?

Although I do not have a brother through blood, God has given me many brothers and sisters.  One in particular, who I love very much, I always have this type of conversation with when it comes to works and the grace of God.  The grace of God, not a thing of God but how God chooses to see us, sees us as justified, not by our own doing through following the law but because of what God does for us in God’s Son, Jesus the Christ.  This new perspective, this grace filled way in which God sees us and we are grafted into the vine of Jesus as His brothers and sisters is free for the taking.

God has sent God’s Spirit to be with us always.  It is in the Spirit, if we cooperate, if we choose to be benefactors of the Spirit that we receive the fruits of the Spirit, those things that God wants for God’s children.  What of the law then?  The law reveals the need for God’s Spirit.  What do we do to deserve this?  Not a darn thing and it is in our change of heart, molded by the Spirit, that the old self is removed and a new self is built up by the Spirit and we respond to God…We respond in the ways that God wants us to.  We love God with all our heart, mind and sole.  We love our neighbor as ourselves and benefit from the fruits of the Spirit.

Will we fail?  Boy, will we fail.  I do often and it hurts me each and every time.  God does not punish me for my failures.  I have punished myself because each time I have failed, I pull myself further away from God and I don’t get to experience the kingdom in the here and now.  Often I do not always understand, I don’t understand and I allow my old self, my sinful nature to creep back.  I cannot fight my sinful nature, only God can do that but I can let it come back in, that is what my free will does to me, to you, to each and everyone one of us.  Careful of the free will and what we think “WE” can do on our own.

So near the beginning of this, I said there were two things that this instructor in diakonia said to us.  As you now know, that instructor was and still is, Pastor Ben.  He said another thing to us that bookends the Old Testament and the New Testament with his sayings.  He has often pointed out a verse from Deuteronomy that allows me to rely upon God’s unfailing love when I become confused, unaware, lost and fail because when we often just don’t get it.  The verse is Deuteronomy 29:29, which says;

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. ^[3]

Let us all not get hung up on what God has left secret and instead focus upon what God has revealed.  God has always revealed God’s love for God’s people.  It was in God’s Son that God revealed God’s face for the entire world to see and it was in God’s Son that God continues to reveal the Love of God for all of humanity for all eternity and it is in the Holy Spirit that God’s love is showered upon us so that we may benefit in all that God offers to us daily.

Go out today knowing that God loves you, God’s face shines upon you and that God’s love is available to you through the Spirit and you shall experience; “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control.”^[4]