Bible Passage: 1 John 3:14-24
Pastor: Michael Willitz
Sermon Date: May 2, 2021

Bulletin May 2, 2021

John Preaches to the Heart

Solus Christus

1 John 3:14–24

¹⁴ We know that we have crossed over from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him. ¹⁶ This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us. And we also should lay down our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷ Whoever has worldly wealth and sees his brother in need but closes his heart against him—how can God’s love remain in him? ¹⁸Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth.

¹⁹This is how we know that we are of the truth and how we will set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. ²²We also receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight. ²³This then is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love one another just as he commanded us. ²⁴The one who keeps his commands remains in God and God in him. This is how we know that he remains in us: We know it from the Spirit, whom he has given to us.

John Preaches to the Heart

1. He preaches against closing our hearts.
2. He preaches for finding rest for our hearts.

Dear fellow redeemed in Jesus Christ, the True Vine,

A remarkable thing took place in South Africa on December 3^rd, 1967. On that day a doctor named Christiaan Barnard performed the very first human heart transplant. He removed from a patient a diseased and failing heart, and he replaced it with a strong and healthy heart.

Yet an even more remarkable thing took place on the day when you were baptized. Your heart was worse than sick. It was dead in sin and unbelief. No human physician could save you or give you the slightest bit of help. But God performed a miracle: he removed your dead, sinful heart, and he replaced that heart with a living one. God performed the miracle that he had promised to perform when he said through the mouth of his prophet, Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit inside you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh,” [36:26].

You have received a new heart from God, a living heart. You have received a heart that believes in Jesus Christ and that loves God and every Christian brother. And this is the heart that is being addressed in today’s text. In this text we hear as John Preaches to the Heart. He preaches to us against closing our hearts, and he preaches to us for finding rest for our hearts.

It is a simple truth of the Scriptures that once we have been brought to faith, we cannot help but love. In fact, in the very first verse of our text, John tells us that love is an indication that we are alive and not dead. He says, “We know that we have crossed over from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death,” [14]. The one who has been brought to life loves, and the one who does not love is not alive. Now, this is nothing different than what Jesus was teaching in the Gospel lesson today, when he said, “I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him is the one who bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing,” [John 15:5]. Since we are alive in Jesus, we bear the fruit of love, just like a branch alive in the vine grows good grapes. But anyone who is not bearing the fruit of love is not alive in Jesus, just like a dry and fruitless branch is not alive in the vine. Love naturally springs from faith in Christ. The Christian does not choose to grow it. The Christian cannot help but grow it. It is the work of God when he changes the heart of the believer.

Yet even as love grows in the heart of the believer, it does not stay hidden in the heart, does it? Love makes itself known on the outside, and not merely in our words. So you tell your spouse and your children that you love them, but that love also shows in the things that you do. On Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, you might buy a card that says, “I love you.” But your love for your parents also shows in the things that you do. John says in our lesson, “Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth,” [18].

Love that exists as nothing more than words is like the mirage of an oasis that a thirsty traveler sees in the desert. While the mirage may tell the traveler that there is refreshment up ahead, it is a lying vision that will not really offer a single drop to drink. In the same way, love that is only a matter of words is a false love that offers no one any real help.

How terrible it would be if God loved like that, if when we fell into sin, God said, “I love you, but I’m not actually going to do anything to rescue you from hell.” Instead, God’s love took action. Your God actually put his skin on the line, by taking on skin and flesh and bone and laying down his life so that you have life. What God did is our definition of love. John says, “This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us. And we also should lay down our lives for our brothers. Whoever has worldly wealth and sees his brother in need but closes his heart against him – how can God’s love remain in him?” [16-17].

So love leads to action, and as far as examples, John goes from the greater to the lesser. In love, Jesus laid down his life for us. Now, since we have love, we are willing to lay down our lives for fellow believers. And if we are willing to lay down something as big as our lives, then we are also willing to lay down something as small as earthly possessions. Or would a person who is stingy in the small things turn around and be generous in the big things? A heart that is not closed but lives and freely loves will give both if they are needed.

Does that prick you a little bit? It pricks me too, because I know the selfish and stingy thoughts that often arise in me. We need to continue to listen to John as he preaches to the heart, because after he directs us against closing our hearts, he guides us to see where our hearts can find rest. He writes, “This is how we know that we are of the truth and how we will set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything,” [19,20].

John has left no uncertainty about it: the one who believes has a living heart that loves. Yet even as we do have this new living heart, our old sinful nature still clings to us until the day we die. As a result, all our works, even our good works of love, are tainted by sin. So maybe you clean up your kids when they come in with skinned knees and dirt-caked feet, but you find yourself grumbling the whole time about the inconvenience. Or maybe you mow the lawn of a neighbor while he is away on vacation, and you find yourself hoping that at least one other person will see you helping out and recognize what a good neighbor you are. And those are just the good things we do. There are also the times when we do what we plainly shouldn’t or the times when we don’t do what we plainly should. With all this sin in our lives our consciences are often pricked, and we can easily get to the point at which our hearts begin to condemn us. After you hear all about the love that springs from faith in Christ, and you know just how imperfect your love is, you might begin to wonder about your standing before God.

You wouldn’t be the first Christian to struggle in this way. In fact, John writes what he does because there are times when Christians struggle in this way. When our hearts are condemning us, we can find comfort in the fact that God is greater than our hearts. Yes, there might be times when your heart is accusing you, but your heart is not the one who gives the final verdict. God is the Judge and Jury when it comes to your standing before him. And do you know what God says about you? He says in the Gospel that all your sins are forgiven. He says in the Absolution that he finds you not guilty because of Jesus’ death. He says in Holy Baptism that he has poured out his Holy Spirit on you, and that he has clothed you and covered you in the righteousness of Jesus with which he is pleased.

If your heart is pronouncing a different judgment than that, then it is not God who needs to be persuaded differently. It is instead your heart that needs to rest in what God has declared. He is greater than your heart. Do you think that he doesn’t know about your sins even better than you do yourself? And yet he still pronounces you forgiven. He still calls you to believe that you are reconciled through Christ. He still names you his dear child.

It speaks volumes that in this text in which John is urging his hearers to love and encouraging them to find rest for their hearts that he doesn’t refer to them as unbelievers. He doesn’t call them half Christians or potential people of God. Instead, in verse 18, he names his hearers as “Dear children.” It is a reminder of the comforting words that he spoke at the very beginning of this chapter, saying, “See the kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!” [3:1].

Our solid ground of confidence is not the testimony our own hearts give about ourselves. The solid ground on which we can stand is the sure and certain Word of our God. Trusting in that Word, we have confidence before God, because we know that he will not and he cannot lie to us. And we know his invitation that we can ask of him and we will receive. So we ask him for the Holy Spirit. We ask for strengthening in our faith. We ask him to give us peace in our hearts. We ask him to bring forth in us the love that he desires, and we know that he will do it for the sake of his Son.

So we continue our Christian life as people with a new and living heart. We look for the opportunities and the people we can love. And we continue to look to Christ for the forgiveness, the life, and the certainty that we need. He is the Vine. We are the branches. All our life and love derives from him.

Amen