The Law Of Love

 

Text: 1 John 3:1-7

Focus: Sin and Love

Function: to help people see how knowing God changes them

1:See what love the Father has poured on us, that we should be called the children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ²Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. ³And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

⁴Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. ⁵You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. ⁶No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. ⁷Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

Good morning! This has always been a heavy passage for me. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, there was a season in my preaching where I focused on convicting people of their sins instead of leading them to the power of Christ to be made whole and free from sin.

At the time, as a new Christian who wanted to please the master, I had a “stop sinning” mentality. And I spent my life avoiding sin.

That may sound noble and pure, but the problem with it is that I spent my life focused on sin, and afraid of it, instead of on Jesus and his love which is not retribution for our sins, but restoration from the things that break us.

I suppose it makes and made a difference how I described sin at the time. I was a good brethren, a “Person of the Book” who loved Jesus and like Peter right before he denied Christ three times, was pretty sure that my will was strong enough to resist any temptation that came my way.

And it was an important season in my life. As verse 3 says, “all who have this hope in him purify themselves just as he is pure.” Or one of the verses I remembered from my childhood from Psalm 119: How can a young man keep his way pure? By studying the word.

So, I got wrapped up in the purity culture that has dominated all religions from the beginning of time.

But then I grew in my faith.

It is important to remember that Jesus hung out with people who were considered impure. He hung out with the Lepers, who were forced to cover their faces and shout out whenever someone got near them that they were not pure. He hung out with people that the purity culture called sinners like Prostitutes and tax collectors and others. This really rose their ire. They were convinced that their standards of purity kept them in divine favor and allowing impure people into the society would lead to their eventual downfall. Purity was important and sometimes, people had no choice, there were simply forced into the impure class.

When Jesus ate with impure people, he was casting down this system that kept some in bondage and gave privilege to others. He was symbolically showing the Religious class who used purity as a way to include and exclude people that everyone is welcome in the Kingdom of God.

Everyone is welcome was a radical idea and it upset those who gained power, prestige and or wealth from the system. It was part of the political system, and Jesus’ message is indeed political as well as spiritual and he was confronting the powers that be.

All of that leads us to understand a different meaning for sin. I like to call it brokenness. The word in the Greek simply means to miss the mark. It ranges from simply making a mistake to committing an act of violence or evil.

And as we looked last week, Jesus came to save us from OUR sins AND the sins fo the world ENTIRE. (1 John 2:1-2). Everyone is forgiven their sins according to scripture. We haven’t emphasized that much in religion because sometimes religion is still about power and control. I try to make our faith about a transforming relationship with God that leads us to love one another.

Jesus set the example by loving and accepting as full participants in the kingdom those whom others felt justified by excluding based on religious dogma instead of the new commandment, Love one another.

My definition of sin, by the way, is anything that keeps us from loving others because that is how we are to show our love for God.

And again, I can focus on sin, or I can focus on connecting with the Spirit of God where the freedom lies.

I introduced the sermon with the words that this is a heavy passage. Verse 8 says, ⁶No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.” That is the reason I was so sin focused.

It was a dilemma because I am not perfect and at that time, everything was a sin, so I failed all the time. And that lead me to doubt if it was all real because I prayed to not sin.

But then I studied the passage in the original language and read it to say that no one who abides in him keeps on committing sin.” The Greek makes it clear that no one who abides in God practices doing evil. They don’t make a habit of it.

I loved learning the verse from that perspective.

And that brings me back to the first paragraph of the passage about when the Kingdom of God starts.

I was taught not to sin because if I died with unconfessed sins, I probably would not make it to heaven.

But look at the passage. In verse 1 the author is amazed at the depth of God’s love that we get to be called the Children of God.

And then he clearly states that it isn’t a future blessing that God has given us. It starts here and now. Yes, there is a future blessing, but the family of God is the church here on earth.

I love the way he holds in tension the future of our eternal life and the present of our eternal life. He gives us the hope for both.

And that, he says, in verse 3 is why we want to keep ourselves pure.

So, what does purity mean if Jesus destroyed the ancient system of purity?

Well, Jesus made it clear in John when he said a whole new set of rules do I give you. And it is simple, love your neighbor as yourself.

Throughout his career, Jesus held on to this very simple message. Care for others the way you care for yourselves.

The path to God, and Jesus shows us the way to God, is through love. It isn’t through being able to abstain from temptation or emphasizing sins and an ancient purity culture. The path to God is through love.

We are still affected by the purity culture that still clouds our judgment and becomes wrong if it keeps us from loving the other.

For example, In our culture, Trans people, Gays, Lesbians, Bi-sexual and Queer people are still considered unclean by many who profess to love others unconditionally. And there can be sin attached to that when the system denies them the same civil rights that most of us have.

And again, in our political culture, the People of Color who are desperately seeking to save their lives at our border are denied access even at legal border crossings. And according to Jesus, there is one name for them, Neighbor. It isn’t drug runner, rapist, murderers, or illegal. Those are terms meant to kill your conscience so that you do not obey the command to love them as neighbor. Don’t fall for it, it is propaganda.

Last week my neighbor who listens to what I call “angry talk radio” all day was going on about how they are bringing diseases that we are already vaccinated against. He was calling them impure and is motivated by a political party who is choosing nationalism over their professed Christian faith.

As one who is called to teach what Jesus taught, I ask you to keep your eyes focused on the command to love your neighbor as yourself when you consider the political ramifications of how we as a nation either obey or refuse God with the refugees at our border.

And we have reverted to the false notion of pure and impure when we think of people on the other side of the aisle from us politically.

This kind of dualism does not reflect the love of Christ for everyone.

Now, we have to end on a positive note by looking at the last verse from the text.

Let me paraphrase it: “Everyone who examines a situation and does the right thing is righteous.”

We are made right in the eyes of God by doing the right thing. I call it following the way of Jesus.

And that message to love our neighbor as ourselves is as simple as do the right thing.