Sermon Text: 1 Peter 3:18-22
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—
20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,
21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Morning Message
This is the first Sunday IN Lent. I try to remind you each year that even though your devotionals may say that this is a Sunday of Lent, for Sundays, the Lord’s Days, are not a part of the Lenten season. Lent is a season of discipline; a time to work on our walk with God, but The Lord’s Day is a day of rest, worship, and rejoicing. This may seem like a small point to make, but I think that it is important because we, as a society, and we as the church, have in many ways made Sunday, The Lord’s Day, just another day. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. We should say that every day, but especially on Sunday.
So today let us focus on love. Not just any love, but proven, lasting love, God’s love, and the love that only He can make possible. From my devotional for Valentine’s Day I found this story of love. The scripture reference is 1 Corinthians 13: 4, 8. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up …. Love never fails. In 2008, Zelmyra and Herbert Fisher broke the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage. At that point, they had been married for 84 years. When Herbert died in 2011 at age 105, they had been married for just under 87 years. How did they do it? “Love each other with all of your heart …. Remember marriage is not a contest, never keep a score.”
The Fisher’s exemplified what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “Love never fails.” The love he referred to was agape love—the unconditional, sacrificial love that God has for us. But let’s face it: Making love last, and never having love fail, is not easy. In fact, it’s impossible, humanly speaking. We need the never-failing love of God within us to have a human love that never fails. This story and the scripture that goes with it makes a very important point that we often miss. Human love only lasts when God is included in it. Now I’m not talking exclusively about the longevity of marriage, I am talking about a lasting love, blessed by God, within the bounds of marriage, two completely different things. God is love, and He is the creator and sustainer of all love.
As humans, we look for proof of love. We understand that it has become easy for people to say, “I love you.” The world has become conditioned to say what they think we want to hear. It has become easier to just say it to everyone in every situation, just to make sure people feel appreciated and cared for. Like many other words and things in our culture love has lost it’s true meaning and the word, in and of itself, makes little difference because the true intend is not behind it. Every one of us understands the difference between hearing someone say that they love you and feeling loved. Like everything else in our Christian lives, love requires action to really matter. We are told that faith without action is dead, and I would say that the same can be said about love. You can’t just say it; you have to show it. This would have been helpful before Valentine’s Day for some of us.
We have a wonderful example from God that demonstrates love for us. From your Lenten devotional for yesterday – Romans 5:8: But God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. I know that most of you have this devotional, but for those who don’t, let me repeat it. “A human being is not someone who once in a while makes a mistake, and God is not someone who now and then forgives. No! Human beings are sinners and God is love. The conversion experience makes this obvious with stunning simplicity and disarming clarity.” “I think I will forever struggle with this conundrum; I am a sinner, but God, Almighty God, loves me anyway. Yet while I struggle, God goes all out to prove His love by letting His Son Jesus lay out the truth of His love in dying. It’s as if God is saying, “Yes, yes, I know you’re a sinner; you’ve told me that a thousand times. But when are you going to hear me when I say it’s not all about you—it’s about Jesus. Jesus came to prove my love, and He did it with a cross.”
You may not have heard God’s love in our sermon text today, but maybe you should read it again and listen to how God loved you before you even existed. Before you could even acknowledge Him, He died on a cross for you. God didn’t just look down from heaven and say “I love you”, He didn’t just write you a letter, although He has written many letters in His Word to you. God didn’t just wait around and hope that we would look at creation and know how much He loved us. God took action to prove once and for all eternity that He loves you. In this same way, we must love. You know this, we all know this, we must show our love for each other, and the world must see our love not just hear about it. “For God so loved the world that He GAVE His Son.” Actions speak much louder than words.
From the devotional: “I suspect that I will always in some way wrestle with the idea that God could really love me, as the hymn says, ‘Just as I am without one plea.’ But in my head and heart, I still keep hearing Jesus saying, ‘I love you, I forgive you, and that’s that.’” You see, Jesus can say that, and we can clearly hear that. Do you know why? Because He has already proven it on the cross.
In Christ’s Love and Peace
Pastor Bob
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