Epiphany Sunday Message

Message: “Leaning Love, Sharing Love”

Scripture: Psalm 86:8-13, 1 John 4:16b-21 (NRSVUE)

Opening

Church, today is Epiphany.
And Epiphany is basically a word for “showing.” Something comes into view.

But it’s important to say what kind of “showing” we mean. This isn’t just that we finally figured something out. Epiphany isn’t the celebration of how sharp our spiritual eyesight is. It’s the celebration of God choosing to step into the light. God choosing to be known. God choosing to make God’s heart visible.

And that matters, because if we’re honest, a lot of the time we treat faith like a project.
We search. We decide. We improve. We prove. We try to be consistent. We try to be good. We try to be strong.

Epiphany kind of slips in and rearranges that whole story. It says, before any of that, there is God’s movement toward you. And the shape of that movement isn’t pressure. It isn’t a demand. It’s love.

So our theme for this first Sunday isn’t just a nice phrase. It’s a confession.

God gathers us first. Love begins with God’s initiative.

Psalm 86 and 1 John 4 say that in two different voices. Psalm 86 is a prayer from the real world. First John is a pastoral word that won’t let love stay theoretical. One reading opens out toward the nations. The other insists love has to show up in everyday relationships. And together they give us a deep Epiphany claim.

God isn’t only revealed. God is revealed as love. And that love doesn’t just comfort individuals. It creates a people.

A God unlike the gods we actually live by

Let’s start with Psalm 86.

This psalm doesn’t feel like it was written on a day when everything was going smoothly. It sounds like somebody under pressure. Somebody who can’t pretend. Somebody who is tired, or threatened, or worn down.

And right in that place, the psalmist says, “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord.”

Now, that line is not a history lesson about ancient religions. It’s a protest. It’s the psalmist saying, “I know what this world treats as ultimate, and I’m not buying it anymore.”

Because we all have “gods,” even if we never call them that.

Sometimes our god is control.
Sometimes it’s success.
Sometimes it’s fear, honestly.
Sometimes it’s reputation, security, anger, winning, being right.

Those are the things we serve without realizing we’re serving them. They promise life, but they shrink us. They make us smaller, tighter, more anxious, more suspicious.

So the psalmist says, none of those gods is like you.

And why not It’s not because God simply overpowers them. It’s because God’s greatness has a different kind of weight to it. God’s greatness is moral beauty. It’s wonder, mercy, fidelity.

The psalmist dares to call God “good and forgiving,” and then uses that old covenant word: steadfast love.

Steadfast love isn’t a warm mood. It’s not fragile. It’s not the kind of love that disappears the moment you disappoint someone. It’s love with memory. Love with promise. Love that holds when the relationship is strained. Love that keeps showing up.

And then, right when the prayer feels very personal, the psalm suddenly widens in a way that almost surprises you.
“All the nations you have made shall come and bow down before you, O Lord.”

Think about what just happened.

One person is praying from a small, threatened place. And suddenly the prayer opens into a vision as wide as creation. The God who hears one frightened voice is also the Maker of every people. God is not a local deity for one corner of the world. God is the source of every nation, every language, every life.

So the psalmist is already doing theology. The psalmist is saying, “If God is truly God, then God’s mercy can’t stay private. God’s love has a horizon. It moves outward. It draws.”

That’s Epiphany energy. God’s self giving doesn’t stop with whoever happens to be closest. The light travels. The mercy keeps going. And the goal isn’t just that a few individuals feel better. The goal is worship, reconciliation, a healed world.

But then the psalm comes back down to earth again.
“Great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths.”

So Psalm 86 holds together what we usually separate: intimate rescue and global scope.

It’s personal, yes. God meets the psalmist right where they are. But it’s never only personal. God’s love, when it’s real, creates a people. It gathers. It widens. It makes room for “all the nations you have made.”

That matters for Epiphany. Because Epiphany is not just about God giving me a little light for my private life. Epiphany is about God’s light for the world.

Love as participation, not as religious mood

Now let’s listen to 1 John.

First John speaks with a different kind of intensity. It’s less poetic, more direct. It’s like a pastor looking at a church and saying, “We cannot keep doing religion that never becomes love.”

And then it says the most daring thing.

“God is love.”

That’s not a sentimental statement. It’s not “God is loving” the way you might say a person is loving. It’s stronger than that. It’s saying love belongs to God’s very being.

Which means, at the deepest level, reality is not grounded in randomness. Not in violence. Not in fear. Not in scarcity. Reality is grounded in God’s life, and God’s life is love.

And then 1 John makes this equally daring claim:
“Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

That word “abide” is a home word. It means dwelling. Remaining. Making a home.

So the Christian life isn’t mainly, “Try to imitate Jesus from a distance.” It’s more like, “God is sharing God’s own life with you.” Love isn’t just a moral standard outside of you. Love is the atmosphere of communion with God.

That’s why love can’t stay private. If God’s love is actually dwelling in a community, it will shape the community’s instincts.

Then there’s that line about judgment.
“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment.”

A lot of people hear “judgment” and immediately think, “Oh no, punishment.” But biblically, judgment is bigger than that. Judgment is truth brought into the light. Judgment is God setting things right. Judgment is God saying a final no to everything that destroys life and a final yes to life.

So why would love give boldness on that day

Because fear grows when we imagine God as fundamentally against us, like we’re approaching an angry examiner.

But if God is love, then the deepest reality we meet is not hostility. It’s holy love. Love that tells the truth, yes. Love that burns away what deforms life, yes. But love that heals. Love that restores. Love that brings us into the light not to crush us, but to free us.

That’s why 1 John says,
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment.”

This isn’t self help. This is theology.

Fear here is not just being nervous. Fear is a posture. It’s the stance we take when we think we are not safe. We guard ourselves. We manage people. We control outcomes. We keep our distance. We assume the worst. We hoard what we have. We call it wisdom, but it’s actually fear.

And 1 John says love, when it reaches maturity, breaks that posture. Love loosens the grip. Love opens the hands. Love turns you outward. Love makes room.

And then 1 John refuses to let any of this stay theoretical.
“Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars.”

That’s not exaggeration. That’s a spiritual diagnostic.

You cannot claim communion with the unseen God while refusing the visible neighbor.
You cannot lift your hands in worship and keep your heart closed.
You cannot say, “God lives in me,” and then treat people as disposable.

And then comes the line that anchors everything.
“We love because he first loved us.”

That sentence is basically the grammar of Christian existence.

Love is not our achievement that reaches God.
Love is our response to a love that already reached us.

And this is exactly where our theme sits.

God gathers us first. Love begins with God’s initiative.

What Epiphany reveals about love

So what is Epiphany revealing today, through these two texts

It’s revealing the character of God.

Not a distant power.
Not a cold deity.
Not a God who waits for you to get your life together and then finally accepts you.

God is revealed as steadfast love. Covenant faithfulness that doesn’t abandon.

And that love is not revealed just so we can admire it. It’s revealed to form a people. A community whose life begins in reception and then becomes witness.

Epiphany is not only “God is present.” It’s “what kind of presence is God.”

A presence that gathers instead of scatters.
A presence that widens the circle instead of guarding a small inner room.
A presence that becomes a home for fearful people, then teaches them how to live without fear as their master.

And it’s important to name this plainly on Epiphany.

The New Testament doesn’t leave “love” as a vague spiritual principle. It points to Jesus Christ. Love has a face. Love has hands. Love has a cross.

God doesn’t shout love from a distance. God enters the world, bears the world, heals the world, and refuses to abandon the world.

So when we say love begins with God’s initiative, we’re not talking about an idea. We’re talking about God’s movement toward us in Christ. God coming near. God making a home with us.

Bringing it close

Now, I know how this time of year feels. Some of us start a new year with energy. Others start with weight.

Some are grieving.
Some are worried about money.
Some are exhausted by caregiving.
Some are quietly anxious about the future.
Some are lonely in a way that doesn’t show on the outside.
Some are tired of conflict.
Some are tired of themselves.

If that’s you, hear what these texts are doing.

They’re not telling you to manufacture love out of emptiness. They’re pointing you to the source.

Psalm 86 gives you permission to pray from need. Not to clean yourself up first. Not to find the right mood. Just to pray honestly, and to trust God’s steadfast love.

First John won’t let fear become your theology. Fear may be present, but fear does not get to define reality. Love defines reality, because God is love.

So here’s a small shift to try this week.

Let Scripture speak to you before the day starts demanding things from you.

Maybe you wake up and the first thing you feel is the pressure of the day. Or the anxiety. Or the mental list. Try letting one sentence meet you first.

“You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love.”
Or, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God.”

Not as a magic spell. Not as something to force calm. More like something to return to. Something to stand on.

And then let love become visible in one place where fear usually controls you.

Because fear has patterns.

Fear can make you withdraw.
It can make you hard.
It can make you impatient.
It can make you protective of your time.
It can make you assume the worst about someone.

So ask this question: what would my next move look like if love, not fear, was guiding me

Maybe it’s a call you’ve been putting off.
Maybe it’s a kindness you’ve minimized.
Maybe it’s a conversation you’ve avoided.
Maybe it’s an apology you’ve delayed.
Maybe it’s noticing a neighbor you’ve overlooked.
Maybe it’s giving freely.
Maybe it’s staying present with someone else’s pain without trying to fix it too quickly.

Not because these actions earn God’s love. They don’t.

They’re what happens when God’s love is actually dwelling in a community.

And Psalm 86 reminds us why this matters beyond us.
“All the nations you have made.”

That vision doesn’t become believable through religious branding or church ambition. It becomes believable when ordinary communities embody a different reality. When love is practiced with enough consistency that somebody can say, “Maybe God really is like that.”

Closing

Epiphany is the season when God steps into view.

Psalm 86 shows a God whose greatness is mercy, whose horizon is the nations, whose love reaches into the depths.

First John shows a God whose very being is love, whose love makes a home with us, whose love loosens fear’s grip, and whose love becomes real only when it touches the neighbor.

So as we begin this year, we begin where Scripture begins.

Not with our plans, but with God’s character.
Not with our striving, but with God’s gift.

May we become a church gathered by steadfast love, learning love as a way of life, and sharing that love until our neighbors can recognize the light.

Amen.