John 13:31-35  So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.  ³² "If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.  ³³ "Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, 'Where I am going, you cannot come,' so now I say to you. 

³⁴ "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  ³⁵ "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Today is your confirmation day, Jada!  I know this is a day that your mom and your grandparents and the rest of your family has looked forward to for a long time.  And I know you’ve been looking forward to this day too! 

Your confirmation day is a confirmation of your baptism—that you believe the faith into which you were baptized.  It’s the confirmation that you are able to examine yourself so that you can receive the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner.  But there’s one other confirmation that I hope stays with you not just today but always:  that you are confirmed in Christ’s love.

I.      In Christ’s love for you.

First of all I want you to know that you are confirmed in Christ’s love for you.  When you think about the reasons to love somebody, human beings tend to be concerned about similar things.  Attractiveness is important:  a pretty face, “nice eyes.”  Perhaps even more important are questions of character:  “Is he successful?”  “Is this person someone I can count on?”  And maybe even more important than that:  is the person even likable?  Is this person nice? 

Attractiveness, character, likability—these are all important things when someone’s choosing a husband or a wife, don’t get me wrong.  And yet if you’re just thinking about general human relationships—how people become friends—doesn’t our desire to find all these things in someone else reflect just a little bit of selfishness?  One of the things that marks every human relationship is the importance we place on “what the other person does for me.”  That the reason I choose to like someone or want to hang around someone or be with someone is because:  “This person makes me feel good.”  Now, is that really love?  Or is it something else? 

If you want to know what real love is all about, all you need to do is look to Jesus!  He showed the greatest love of all.  On that Passover night Jesus knew full well what was coming.  He knew why Judas Iscariot had left:  he was going to betray Jesus!  And yet Jesus told the remaining Eleven:  “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him…  Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer.  You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you” (v. 31, 33).  Jesus knew that He was going to the cross to suffer and die—not just for His friends, but even His enemies, for Judas who had already left to betray Him, for all those who hated Him and were going to have Him killed.  He was going to die for the whole world.   

Jesus didn’t come to this earth to die for good people, but for self-centered, selfish sinners like you and me.  The Bible tells us that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  We weren’t attractive or likable at all!  And yet “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). 

And this is the love that Jesus has shown to you, Jada!  He’s shown that love to you in the waters of your baptism, where Jesus personally washed your sins away and made you one of God’s children.  He’s shown that love to you in the revealed Word of God—in the pages of your Bible—where He’s spoken His love into your heart.  And now, after today, you will also know that love in the Lord’s Supper, where you’ll receive Christ’s body and blood under the bread and wine for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith.

So for this reason, today, we give glory to God!  We glorify Father, Son, and Holy Spirit today for the great love that He has shown you and all of us!  We glorify Jesus for the love that assures you that if you hold on to Him in faith, you will receive the crown of life (Rev. 2:10)?    

II.     In love that marks you as Christ’s follower.

And as you are confirmed in the love that Christ has for you, you also are confirmed in the love that marks you as Christ’s follower.  Jesus told His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (v. 34).  “Love one another,” Jesus said, “with the same kind of love that I have given you.”  Jesus wants His disciples to love one another with the same self-sacrificing love He has shown to them. 

This is the kind of love that puts others ahead of self.  Hopefully this kind of love exists between husbands and wives; but also it’s the kind of love that you have for your friends, for your brothers and sisters, for your family, for your neighbors, and even for strangers that you happen to meet.  And this is the kind of love that Jesus especially wants you to have for your fellow believers in Christ.  It’s the kind of love that causes you to be there for someone when the rest of the world has seemingly abandoned them.  It’s the kind of love that cares enough about someone else to be gently, yet firmly honest with that person when they’re headed down a path that will lead to their destruction.  It’s the kind of love that is also willing to forgive people when they’re sorry for what they’ve done.  The disciple Peter in 1 Peter 4:8 tells us that “love will cover a multitude of sins.”  It’s the kind of love that shares Jesus’ desire for all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). 

Other than you coming right out and saying, “I’m a Christian,” this love—as you show it in your life—will mark you as one of Christ’s followers to everybody around you.  “By this,” Jesus says, “all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (v. 35).  Your love is a reflection of Christ’s great love for you and all people. 

I’ll be honest with you:  this kind of love is hard.  It’s a love that’s often rejected and slapped away.  It’s a love that people can easily take advantage of.  And your sinful human nature’s going to want to quash that love and keep you from showing it out of selfish fear—fear of rejection, fear of making somebody angry, fear of being taken advantage of again.  In fact, you and I fail at showing love every day.  We need Jesus’ love to make our love go.    

This is why confirmation isn’t the end.  Being confirmed in eighth grade is kind of like getting your driver’s license when you’re sixteen.  Do you know many people who when they get their license go, “Yay, I have my license, now I never have to drive again!”?  Getting your license isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of a life behind the wheel.  In the same way, confirmation isn’t the end, but a beginning:  the beginning of an ever-growing, ever-deepening relationship with your Lord in Word and Sacrament.  It’s the beginning of your adult life in the church.  Now that you can take communion—take it often!  When you come on Sunday morning for service, consider yourself invited to stick around for the Bible class.  Read your copy of Meditations or another favorite daily devotional.  Attend youth events and youth Bible studies.  Find ways to be involved and help out so you can be near the Word of God as often as you can.

Here’s why.  In the rural areas in China you still have millions of people living without power.  The story goes of a man who came down from the country into the city and was fascinated by all the electric lights, that with the flip of a switch you can light up a room or a street.  So the man bought a sack full of light bulbs and switches and brought them back to his village.  He hung the bulbs all over the place, on his house, on the tree outside—everyone wondering what was going on.  He kept telling them, “Wait till it gets dark. You’ll see.”  Night came and he flipped the switches and… nothing.  Nobody told him about electricity:  that for the lights to fire they need to be wired in to their power source. 

Every time you hear God’s Word, every time you come to the Lord’s Table, you are being reconnected to your power source:  to Jesus Christ.  You’re receiving His forgiveness to cover over your sins.  And in His means of grace, Christ strengthens your faith and rekindles that love in your heart and fans it into flame so you can let that light shine—not just one day, but every day! 

Jada, today you’re being confirmed—confirmed in the love of Christ, the love that marks you as one of His disciples.  But you only have that love because you’re already confirmed in the love that Christ Himself has for you.  And He promises to keep you in that love until the day He takes you to be with Him.  Amen.