Sermon: Love Not Grievance | 1 John 4:1-11 | God is Love

Little by little it seems our culture is moving from being centered on the family with its focus of love for one another to tribalism, where membership is based not on love, but on grievance. An episode of the iconic 90’s sitcom Seinfeld has a humorous example of this as one of the characters in the show decides to make up his own secular holiday to replace Christmas. He called it Festivus. “Festivus for the rest of us.”
Instead of sharing gifts put under a Christmas tree and celebrating the love of God in Jesus Christ, the family gathered around an aluminum pole for an activity the character, Frank Costanza, called, “The airing of grievances.” It seems, at least to me, that this humorous episode of the fictional Seinfeld has captured something that is happening more and more in real life where the focus has become not love, but grievance. As grievance culture replaces a culture of love emanating from the love of God and expressed in the family, things are not so funny anymore.
Apart from God in Christ, we are left with just the oppressed and the oppressors. The antidote for this comes not from us, but from God. “God is love,” and He has manifested Himself to us by sending “his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” As we “abide in him and he in us” we become instruments not of grievance, but of love.
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Trinity Lutheran Church, School and Child Care have been "Making Known the Love of Christ" in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and throughout the world since 1853 as a congregation gathering around God's Word and Sacraments to receive forgiveness and life everlasting. Trinity is located in downtown Sheboygan, only one block from the Mead Public Library and the Weill Center for the Performing Arts. We invite you to visit us in person!
Trinity Lutheran Sheboygan is a proud member of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Visit their website: www.lcms.org/​​​​
Music for this production was obtained through a licensing agreement with One License, LLC. The copyright permission to reprint, podcast, and record hymns and songs is acquired through ID Number: 730195-A
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