The Loving Father`

 

Text: Romans 8:12-17

Focus: The Spirit

Function: How the Spirit of God connects us to God

¹²So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— ¹³for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Good Morning! This passage is packed full of promise for us as we continue the theme of Pentecost and look a little more closely at the role and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

In the beginning, The Word of God, Christ, created everything. Everything came from God, and according to scripture, God is all and in all. That is part of the purpose of God’s redemption for us.

And if Christ created everything, then Christ is in everything. Or, as Fr. Richard Rohr puts it, the Universal Christ. And if Christ is in everything, then everything is divine. That is how Saint Frances of Assissi was able to communicate with what he called Brother Rabbit and Sister squirrel. Because Christ embodied them as well as us. They too, are divine. They are loved and cared for by God. At least, that is what Jesus said when he said that even the sparrows cannot die without God’s love.

According the Fr. Rohr, the Spirit is in everyone, because everyone is created unique by God.

The Spirit of Christ is already in you.

And again, maybe we could say that Christians are those that recognize that the Spirit of Christ is inside of them and they allow the Spirit to lead and guide them. There is a focus in Jesus and the Apostle’s teaching on the power of the Holy Spirit our lives.

For example, the Scripture speaks of healing when it says that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us and it helps our mortal bodies as well.

There are many promises about the Spirit in our lives.

Believers are those that Trust Christ. Trusting Christ can be made as simple as letting the Spirit lead in our lives.

I need to tell you that the Spirit’s leading for me is through contemplation, prayer, study and then actually doing it.

That is why our passage says that we are not obligated to follow our fleshly desires that go against the principle of loving our neighbor as ourselves. Things like unforgiveness, jealousy, and greed.

It implies then, that we are obligated, as it says, to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives.

I try to spend time in prayer and contemplation, not trying to tell God what God already knows, but trying to listen to that still small voice of God that always leads me to forgiveness.

And as I mentioned a few weeks ago. The one thing that blocks the Spirit’s leading in my life is unforgiveness.

Without forgiveness of others, the scripture says, we are not forgiven ourselves and remain in bondage to unforgiveness.

Forgiveness sets us free.

So the passage says, put to death the deeds of the body.

A lot of us grew up hearing that putting to death the deeds of the body meant that we lived holy lives abstaining from swearing, even saying gosh and darn and shoot, abstaining from alcohol, gambling, dancing and jewelry for the women.

None of those things mattered in comparison to the holiness of love that God calls us to. The sins of racism, gluttony, greed, gossiping, judgmentalism, and placing patriotism over our love for God were encouraged in our churches over the teachings of Jesus.

But that was the past. I hear the Spirit doing something new. And now I hear preachers all over the world calling us to repent for the arrogance of that old kind of faith and start loving like Jesus calls us to.

So, he says put to death the deeds of the body. Put to death bitterness, jealousy, greed, hatred, unforgiveness and pride.

When forgiveness is hard for me, I remember that it is the spiritual discipline of putting to death the deeds of the flesh.

It is our fleshly nature, not spiritual nature, according to Paul in Romans, that causes us to want to hang on to unforgiveness, bitterness, jealousy and the pride that comes from being judgmental. The passage says that this leads to death. It means that these deeds do not bring the life giving power of God to us.

Okay, let me sum all that up so that I can segue away for a moment before I come back.

The Spirit is here in us. We have a choice to let the Spirit lead. Sometimes our baser instincts get in the way of loving others and that hinders the work of the Spirit in our lives.

Now the segue:

I titled the sermon the Loving Father because what impresses me the most about this passage is the way he speaks of the power of community with God that the Spirit brings to us.

He says the Spirit bears witness with ours that we are indeed Children and heirs with Christ.

And then he speaks of the community with God when he says that the Spirit calls out to God the Father with the very fond and familiar term, “Abba.” Abba means daddy, or Papa.

It is a term of endearment.

I used the word Loving as a qualifier in my sermon because I realize that the experience of a loving father may not be the experience of everyone here in the room.

And I want to give grace and understanding to those people because there is a difference between a loving father and a cruel, or self-serving one.

I understand how imperfect parents can confuse our concept of love. For me, the confusing problem with a parent’s love came from my mother. My Father represented the unconditional love of God to me. And I am grateful for that, I wanted to please my father because I loved him and I knew he believed in me.

God is the loving father who believes in us and encourages and enables us.

And Paul tells us that there is indeed a great blessing to be had for those who follow after the Spirit of Christ in their lives.

But now I am going to segue back.

He says that blessing comes to those who suffer with him.

What does he mean by suffer with him?

Again, I am not talking about becoming an actual martyr, unless God gifts us with the eternal blessing that that entails, but I am talking about the sacrifice that it takes to die to unforgiveness, bitterness, jealousy, greed, fear, pride and prejudice.

But don’t forget the promise of this passage. The promise remains. This relationship with God through the Holy Spirit is promised to those who trust in Christ.

Hang on to and nurture that blessing in your lives.

The Helper

 

Text: John 15:26-27; 4-15

Focus: Holy Spirit

Function: to help people experience the Spirit’s power

15:²⁶“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. ²⁷You also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

16:^“4b I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. ⁵But now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. ⁷Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, and you will see me no longer; ¹¹about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

¹²“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Good morning and I guess I should say, “Happy Birthday Church!”

Today is Pentecost. It is the day that we celebrate the beginning of the Church when the Holy Spirit filled the 120 gathered in a large room in Jerusalem.

It is an amazing story. Pentecost is the Jewish celebration that always occurred 50 days after the Passover celebration.

So, this group of believers after seeing Jesus appear to them several times in different form, is coming to terms with the reality that Jesus did indeed die and rise from the dead as Christ.

Some of them have witnessed his ascension into heaven and heard his instruction given to them in the book of Acts 1:8 when Jesus told them that they were to go to Jerusalem and wait for the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon them so that they too can testify to Jesus’ death and resurrection.

It seems to me that this early group of disciples are grasping the reality of their faith and are starting to trust in the promise of Jesus that he will send the Holy Spirit.

And that leads us to today’s text. They are parts of Jesus’ final instructions to the disciples in the Upper Room right after he washes their feet, dismisses Judas for the betrayal and right before he prays a lengthy prayer for them.

Jesus tells them about the mystery of the Holy Spirit in this passage.

He first wants to assure them not to grieve at his absence because by leaving, he will come back to them in the form of the Holy Spirit who will give to them the power to testify as he did.

That phrase I used, “The power to testify” takes me back to Acts 1:8 when he told them they will be his witnesses.

The word for witness is martyr. He tells them literally that they as well will testify to Jesus death by their own martyrdom.

And they didn’t shrink away. God was compelling them to follow God no matter what happened to them.

I keep preaching that we need to follow Jesus example and be willing to take up our cross and follow him as well.

They were not afraid to die because Jesus set the example for them. Jesus resisted the political power, because the spiritual powers were also the political powers, by dying on the cross and and forgiving the political powers in the process. They lived in faith of Jesus’ example to not resist or fight back but to trust in God.

Fighting back leads to more fighting and does not bring us to the peace that Christ intended for us.

But I digress.

Jesus gives us an example of hope in the justice of God.

He tells them that the Holy Spirit will prove their faith and the love and justice of God as he makes us just and righteous people.

We are to testify about his love and sacrifice for us by living loving and sacrificial lives for others.

That is what he means by being his witnesses. They are the ones who bear witness to his resurrection and the way he died. They recognize as well that he didn’t compromise his teachings even though they killed him for them.

We live in culture wars. I had a colleague tell me he was in trouble for “being woke” because he preaching from the Bible about how we are to turn the other cheek and disarm oppression through non violent means, like Jesus did, even if it cost him his life.

I don’t want to scare or shame you about being willing to be a martyr.

The promise from Christ is that we will live an a life without boundaries for eternity life in Christ.

The power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, according to Jesus is like a river of living water running out of us.

I might define Christians as those who allow the Spirit of Christ to move in their hearts.

As we allow the Spirit to move in our hearts we grow deeper in our faith.

And maybe it is because of the emphasis on forgiveness during Kairos, but I find the one thing that frees or limits the moving of the Holy Spirit in my life, is my faithfulness to the spiritual discipline of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a way we testify to Jesus. It almost always contains an element of our own martyrdom because it involves the sacrifice of our pride. But sacrificing our pride is always spiritually beneficial for us.

Even though John mentions Jesus speaking about how the Spirit will show Jesus love and justice to the world through us, the main emphasis of the passage is on the fact that the Spirit is here to help us. Hence the title, The Helper.

The passage translates the idea of helper into the world advocate. An advocate is a sort of counsel who has the power to make things right.

I remind myself that Jesus came to earth to restore the creation back to God by restoring us back to each other and breaking down the walls, not building them up, between the races and cultures and religion and all peoples of the world. And he came to restore all of creation, so it includes justice for the planet without poisoning our children’s future.

And I this passage reminds us that if Jesus leaves planet earth and he will return as the Christ Spirit inside of all of us, made evident in this passage to those who rest in Christ. He left planet earth as Jesus the Nazarene and returned as the Christ just like he promised and it was marked by the miracles of the appearance of flaming tongues and people being able to speak languages that they didn’t know previously.

The Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit and God began doing great things in their midst.

As then we see in the next few chapters of Acts that they gave up their greed and shared in common and helped the poor, who also became believers and shared and helped others and the community prospered because they took seriously the command to love their neighbor just as much as they love their own selves and families.

So the promise is that we will not only be baptized in water, but in the power of the Holy Spirit and it will transform us so that we can follow Jesus and transform our culture into a more loving place.

The Meaning of Baptism

Text: 1 John 5:9-13

Focus: Baptism

Function: to help people see what the symbol of baptism is all about.

⁹If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. ¹⁰Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. ¹¹And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

¹³I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Good morning. Today we are going to talk about baptism. I choose this passage to introduce the theme, but I am a little bit hesitant because of the way we interpret “believe” and then it might sound like the arrogance of “we are in and they are out.” And I don’t want us to focus on that. Today, we focus on what it means to give our lives to Christ.

Because, in essence, Baptism is the symbol of our desire to live according to the teachings of Jesus. Baptism is the outward sign of the inward act to follow the way of Jesus.

The passage tells us that when we believe, God lives in our hearts.

So what does it mean to you to believe? (Later on, we are going to ask that question.)

The word “believe” is always followed with the word into.

It is a statement of trust. We believe into Jesus.

It is more than just believing that Jesus exists but it’s the statement that we trust in him.

Let us do an experiment. For those who are able and willing, for just a moment, would you please stand?

Okay, thanks.

Now, please sit back down.

When you were sitting down before you stood up, you knew that the chair you were sitting in would support you.

As a matter of fact, I guess that before you sat in the chair the firs time, you didn’t check it to see if it was safe, you trusted it because you have sat in the chair before.

That is what trusting Jesus is like. When you sat back down, you trusted the chair, and rested yourselves.

Our experiences with God lead us to rest in God and trust God more and more.

Baptism then, is that outward sign of our inward decision to trust, or rest, in Jesus.

We acknowledge that Jesus is here, living in our hearts and our Christian journey is learning to walk with Jesus here (point to heart), in our hearts.

The promise is that this kind of life will lead us to love one another.

Why do we trust Jesus? Because Jesus came to us from God and showed us how God wants us to live.

Jesus came to restore the world to God. He was killed by evil people for telling people to always love others. But he rose from the dead as the Christ and his death and coming back to life has made the way for us to have hope in living Jesus’ way. We don’t have to be afraid anymore. God now calls us God’s children.

This passage tells us that this new life from God is the way we are saved. And since Jesus has restored us to God, we call it “salvation.” Christ is the Savior of all. Those who trust in him get baptized as a symbol of their trust in Christ.

The Other John 3:16

 

Text: 1 John 3:16-24

Focus: Sacrificial love

Function: to help people see the extent of the command to love one another

¹⁶We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. ¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

¹⁸Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. ¹⁹And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him ²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God, ²²and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

²³And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. ²⁴All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

Good Morning. Sometimes one has to try to forgive us preachers for trying to be clever with the hopes that the cleverness will drive home the point. So, I was going to title this lesson from 1 John as “The Rest (instead of The Other) of John 3:16.”

But then I realized that the rest of John 3:16 is John 3:17. John 3:16 is probably so familiar to us that we could all quote it together from the King James: For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life.

It is the first bible verse that I learned to memorize and it speaks to us of our great hope.

I should preach a sermon on it sometime.

But the rest of John 3:16 is john 3:17 which is the rest of the paragraph that the famous verse mentions. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world would be saved through him.

God sent Jesus to save the world.

And it comes, the next verse after that, to everyone who believes in Jesus.

We are going to focus on what it means to believe in a few weeks when we are doing the membership class. Let us understand that it means to acknowledge more than the fact that he existed, or that God exists. It means like a marriage, we place our trust in him. We become permanent partners with him. He makes a covenant with us to adopt us into his family and the metaphors are either as his bride or as his children.

We are united and we place our hope and trust in the fact that he raised from the dead. When we face the difficulties that actually following him entails, we can remember that after suffering is resurrection..

So, the rest of John 3:16 is John 3:17 and I changed the title to “The Other John 3:16.”

And that is from 1 John.

The first John 3:16, “for God so loved the world…” ends in “...eternal life” this 2^nd John 3:16, from the letter we are reading this morning speaks of what that eternal life is.

I dusted off my Greek New Testament and looked up the word for eternal life. And the world literally means “without boundaries.”

At times it can indicate life after death, but for the most part, it indicates a life limitless in its possibilities. He is speaking of a life full because it is a life lived in God. God is in the world entire and by faith all the possibilities are opened up to us.

John 3:16 speaks to the path to this full life in God through trusting in Jesus. Sadly, we might have reduced it to mean that if we believe the right thing, then when we die, we get to go to heaven.

That is so limiting, I believe, as to what Jesus is actually trying to do with us for the rest of the world.

Believing in Jesus is walking in Jesus’ way of living and loving.

So, John 3:16, the one familiar to us speaks of God’s gift of Jesus to the world for the salvation of the world.

Jesus came to save the world. And again, it isn’t about getting into when we die, Jesus came to set the world back to the right.

The light of the world came to cast out the darkness. The darkness resided in the Political and religious authorities powers that didn’t include prosperity for everyone. And they were not too happy about his message, so they had him put to death in order to silence him.

So, 1 John 3:16 comes along and redirects us to the the current group of people who are here to change the world. In a second, I’ll tell you who that is.

The text says that we know love by this, Jesus showed us how to love by laying down his life for us. Jesus commanded us to follow in h is footsteps. So we should do likewise and lay down our lives for others.

And then he goes into our passage explaining to some degree just what he means by laying down our lives and loving others.

He tells us to look at our brothers and our sisters and see their needs and see if we have the abundance, help.

Several places the scriptures tell us to lend without the possibility of repayment.

No wonder his message upset the powers that be so much.

But the disciples took these words literally and started a community where everyone shared all of their resources so that there was enough for everyone.

And amazing thing happened then. It was similar in my mind to the feedings of the 5,000 and the 4,000. God supplied abundance back to them and the church grew. It didn’t just grow, but raced across the Roman empire and throughout the world.

Nobody was hoarding their resources anymore and there was enough to for everyone and such an abundance that they were able to take action and lift the poor in their communities out of poverty, who then joined the community and contributed back and the prosperity of the few became the prosperity of all as God promised.

So, the first paragraph of our passage calls us to follow the example of Jesus and be willing to sacrifice ourselves for others.

Romans 12:1 picks up the idea and calls us to present ourselves before God as living sacrifices.

And then, he doesn’t actually command us to kill ourselves in a sacrificial way, but to be generous to the point of sacrifice.

And it worked. And Jesus came to set free the oppressed and to change the story for those being exploited.

It means we care for others as much as we care for ourselves.

John does a masterful segue into the next paragraph. He picks up the theme of loving not just with our mouths but with our actions, “Word and deed,” he says. And then he talks about our conscience.

He mentions that there are times when we have doubts. Our hearts condemn us. We recognize the times when we have not loved as we should have when we know, according to this passage, that God sees our hearts.

I know that God’s grace has forgiven me and made me at peace with God through Jesus. But at times I don’t feel it.

And John is telling us at those times, recall the times when we have obeyed. When God’s Spirit has prompted us to do a good deed and care beyond our comfort zone, kind of like the joy we feel when we bake Kairos cookies because we know we can never be paid back.

John tells us to remind ourselves of those times and to let them be an inspiration to us.

And then he introduces a whole new subject that I am going to end with.

And he emphasizes that we do this because the Spirit of God is filling our hearts with the same compassion for others that God has for us.

It is the Spirit that leads us to do good.

How do we walk in the Spirit?

We learn to walk in the Spirit through prayer, contemplation, study of scripture, fellowship here at Church, enjoying art, walking in nature, getting lost in music. All those things that draw us into the light of the creative power of God.

Let the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit lead you to do the good works we are called to. When you wonder if Christianity is working, recall the times when the Spirit lead you into an act of kindness, or forgiveness or generosity. It comforts our heart.

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.

Forgiving the World

 

Text: 1 John 1:1-2:2

Focus: Forgiveness

Function: To see the universal nature of forgiveness

1:¹We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ²this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— ³what we have seen and heard we also declare to you so that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

⁵This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; ⁷but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

2:¹My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, ²and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Good morning and Happy Easter celebration. I have been focusing on the power, the meaning and the witness of the resurrection during my morning meditation.

Easter gives us hope and calms our fears in the midst of death and darkness. God is the light and now we also, are the light of the world and God is shining through us.

This passage, the confession, or the acknowledgment of sin in our lives is part of the foundation of our Christian life.

John, the author, tells us that if we deny that we have ever sinned and are not willing to confess our sins, then we make God out to be a liar since God said that we are in need of restoration.

I fear that in preaching about sin, people will get the wrong idea and will be filled with shame and lose the hope that the resurrection provides for us.

Early in my ministry, I realized that uncovering sin was meaty material for preaching and I was constantly making people aware of how much they need a savior.

And it is important, I believe, to God, that we acknowledge our need for restoration, or a savior.

I have often said that the church is made up of those who are humble enough to admit that they are not completely self-sufficient and they they are willing to depend on God for help and strength.

He tells us to confess our sins. The word for confess literally means “to say the same thing.” I believe that it means to admit something is not right.

Sin is probably best understood as brokenness. And Salvation from Jesus is healing for our brokenness. John is telling us in these early verses to humble ourselves and admit our need for God. We then see that God has indeed provided a way for us to life a meaningful life in a broken world.

When I say that I am saved, I am saying that I am in the process of restoration from God. God is healing me. God is restoring me. And I need a lot of restoring.

As I mentioned, I used to preach a sin focus and our need to overcome sin in order to live lives pleasing to God.

And then early on, God started showing me that instead of focusing on the fact that we are indeed sinners, I needed to focus my preaching on the power of God to live the life of love and sacrifice that serving Christ is all about.

We have been blessed to be a blessing to others.

And God has forgiven us. God is restoring us to spiritual wholeness. And that has also has consequences to our emotional and physical well being.

He starts out chapter 2 with the acknowledgment that we have not yet achieved the love for others and wholeness that God wants for us. So he tells us that when we are feeling this brokenness and it is affecting our well being, don’t lose hope but look up, or outward to God by admitting again, that we need God’s help.

I read that to say, “Don’t beat yourself up when you make a mistake.”

I love my therapists words that mistakes are actually learning opportunities and chances for us to grow. And well reasoned adults do learn from their mistakes and move on.

And Christ is here with us to give us the strength and hope to move on.

We are indeed born from above with God’s power when we give the Spirit of God the control in our lives.

It is God’s promise to us to be with us and to help us grow more and more into the image of the Christ, the light of the world.

And I emphasize that because it is also God’s job, the success of this is not in our hands anymore, but it relies on the promise of God for us.

And again, the promise is for the Spirit of God to dwell in us to give us the power to love like Jesus loved.

Some theologies will say that if you believe the right thing then you are saved and if you don’t believe those things, you are not saved. I love verse 2 of Chapter 2. Jesus died to save the sins of the world entire.

When I forgive someone who has hurt me, I am just doing what Jesus did for me already. He forgave me before I trusted in him.

We have taught that Jesus forgave the sins of the world entire from the cross. The author of the hymn “When He Was on the Cross….” has us imagining Jesus, in his divine power, looking through time, present, past and future, at the birth of every human soul and saying that he has forgiven them. He has forgiven me.

It is a beautiful image the God forgives each and every one of us.

For some reason, this Kairos, I have been more aware of the kind of people we are serving in the prison. I think of the young man who killed the man I did the funeral for and I realized that some day I may very well be sitting at a table with him, not knowing who he is and will be offering him unconditional love and forgiveness. When I look at the incarcerated men when I am doing a Kairos weekend I don’t see “offenders.” I see forgiven men. Men for whom Jesus’ forgiveness counts because he died on the cross for them as well as me.

God’s love and forgiveness are indeed universal. God, through the Spirit of Christ is restoring the world entire to him.

And again, the fact of the resurrection proves it.

So let us celebrate Easter by allowing ourselves the hope the disciples had when they realized Jesus actually rose from the dead and conquered their fears. That hope causes us to be born from above because we look to God for direction in life.