Perfection in Love: 1 John 4:7-21 - Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶ So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. ¹⁷ Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (NRSVue)

 

101/365 - I Can Only Imagine... by bp6316 on flickr. CC BY 2.0

Be honest: do you wish that you were perfect? If there was a pill you could take that would make you perfect, would you take it?

Swallow it down, and you will look perfect. No more wrinkles, grey hairs, or unwanted pounds. 

Swallow it down, and you will feel perfect. No more aches and pains; no more tiring out and having to take breaks. 

Swallow it down, and your performance will be perfect. Never again will boss nag you or your customers complain. 

You will be the perfect parent—which means you will have perfect children. 

Never again will you question if you’re good enough. There is not a problem you cannot fix. No one reject you or criticize you without making a fool of themselves. 

But is perfection really all that it’s cracked up to be?

Consider this: Jesus was the image of God. He committed no sin. He loved people and cured their diseases. He spoke the truth—and we rejected, hated, and crucified him. Why? Because we’re not seeking perfection in God. Perfection is the god we make of our ambitions. It's the god we make of our insecurities. But it’s also the number one source of preventable stress.

You know what happens when you’re obsessed with being perfect? All that matters to you is what other people think. You become hypersensitive to criticism; you take everything personally, no matter how insignificant. And just because you think something is perfect doesn’t mean someone else is going to agree. 

And since everything in the world is about you, perfectionism is ruinous to relationships. 

I fear for anyone who must work under a perfectionist and have all their work constantly picked apart for faults. I feel for children whose parents push them to be perfect and micromanage every aspect of our lives to protect them from failure. I feel for Christians who see how perfect other people appear to be and wonder if God could ever love them with all their faults.

And yet, God is not interested in perfect people. (I would also argue that perfect people are not interested in God, because if you’re perfect, what do you need to be saved from?)

God doesn’t love you for being perfect; God loves you because God made you. Unlike human beings, God doesn’t require perfection from you as a condition of love. God takes you as you are. What makes God’s love perfect is the fact that God does not stop loving you when you reject him. God in Jesus Christ was killed by the very people he came to save—and he knew all along this would happen. You may ask, “if his love was so perfect, why did we reject it?” Well, love is not mind control. It’s not manipulation. It’s not sorcery or magic.

There can be no love without vulnerability. The fact that you give and sacrifice yourself never guarantees that you won’t be hurt or rejected. And yet, love is made perfect in vulnerability. Not in the outcome. In you. 

To really experience perfect divine love is to have it cover over all your sins, your failures, and your vulnerabilities. Once you no longer live in fear of God rejecting you like other people reject you or how you reject yourself; God’s love will be perfected in you.

You will learn to love yourself and recognize that God wants to love the world through you. It may sound strange for me to bring this up, but you cannot love the neighbor if you don’t love yourself. You can’t serve the neighbor if you do not believe that yourself to be worth sharing. What makes you lovely as a person has nothing to do with perfection or the lack thereof. God’s love is not perfected in your perfection. God’s love is perfected in imperfection. Wha t makes you lovely is the divine love you share with the world despite being a sinner. Despite being vulnerable. Despite not being able to fix people’s problems. Despite not being able to control the outcome. 

It's perfected when the Christian sits in silence beside someone who’s grieving. There’s nothing they can say to make it all better, but they stay there.

It is perfected when one Christian prays with the other, even if the one praying can totally uncomfortable praying out loud.

God’s love is perfected when the Christian is willing to give what little they have to the neighbor in need, all the knowing that they can’t solve all their problems—and that their loving deed may or may not be appreciated. 

God’s love is perfected when a little church like ours believes in God’s power to make a difference, and we seize upon every opportunity before us to share that love. 

God’s love is perfected when children ask to serve and lead.

God’s love is perfected when the treasures of the world lose their luster. God’s love is perfected when we refuse to allow partisan politics and Supreme Court decisions to divide us, and we refuse to waste our energy fighting each other and instead fight for each other. 

Finally, God’s love is perfected when things don’t turn out the way we hope, but we don’t give up on love, because we believe God’s love is the greatest power in the world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. May the perfect love that rescues you from sin and death forever be the only perfection you seek. Let us be a church seeking the Spirit of God, so that this love may be perfected in us for the sake of the world.