July 1
The reading
John 1:5 This 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. 6 If
we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we
lie and do not do what is true; 7 but 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. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful
and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in
us.
2:1 My 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; 2 and he is the atoning sacrifice for our
sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
The message
(Due to heat, we changed around worship spaces. My congregation held worship in one of our
school classrooms).
I have never been in this space for our Sunday Service. I have been to church here in this place a
lot. Over the years, we have had 2
children’s church services every Friday. I have also been leading the English
worship and fellowship for the Church of Grace to the Fujianese every few weeks
in Classroom A,
As I prepared for worship today, I had to think about what
we needed to move, what we had to have for church, We needed bread and wine for communion, music
for our hymns, books and bulletins for our worship and a cross to remind us
that we gather around the news of Jesus death and resurrection. Most importantly to be church we need
people. If we gave heaven points or
bonuses, you all should get a bunch for showing up today (we don’t, just the
same good news and God’s gift of grace for everyone)
If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God who is faithful
and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That
is also something we always have at worship. These words have been part of Lutheran church
service as long as I can remember, I say them each week as part of the
confession at the beginning of our worship.
Part of if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. is good psychology,
Virtually all addiction specialists and members of 12 step programs like
Alcoholics Anonymous, cocaine anonymous, gamblers anonymous or overeaters
anonymous (which covers a wide range of food related addictions including
eating disorders like bulimia or anexoria ) tell me the same thing. Before someone can seek help, they must
recognize or admit there is a problem. This
usually involves hitting bottom, finding yourself in a situation so bad, you
realize something has to change. This
has high limits, sometimes even homelessness, imprisonment, hospitalization or
the loss of a family or job is not enough.
Now, waiting for that step is incredibly scary and frustrating. This
leaves family, friends and loved ones helpless and worried. People find
themselves wondering how can someone not notice and respond to what is
happening.
Of course, the Bible is not a psychology textbook, the bible
is not a self-help guide to successful living and the bible is not the key to
getting rich. The bible is a book, given
to us so that we can know Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not
for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. Knowing this, the universality, depth and
power of God’s love, will help, will lead to real comfort and real peace. Knowing
the love of God will lead to real community, friendship or fellowship (whatever
you call knowing you and your neighbors are connected as children of God saved
by the same Grace)
To be honest, I never knew “if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” was from 1 John, As I looked at the reading for today, I was
surprised, oh that’s where those words come from, as though it was some secret
church authorities had hidden from even me for all these years. 1st John was written as a follow up
to the Gospel of John. As the first
audiences read John, they came to faith in Jesus, who died and rose again for
the forgiveness of our sins. Some people
started to think of Jesus as a spiritual being who was never really human, that
sin was gone and this new faith was a spiritual practice with no impact on us
here and now. 1st John is written to show us Jesus was truly God and
truly human. It was also written to show us that sin was real and what we
believe and what we do are connected.
This morning, we hear the writer of 1st John
start those arguments with the declaration that sin is real. This is a major
part of any Intro to confirmation or Christianity that I teach. The first part
of someone’s request for me to explain what we believe in a minute or two. There is sin in the world, something that
separates us from God, some pull towards ourselves or towards sin we cannot
overcome alone. This is a foundation for us. Last week I said goodbye to the kids at
Rainbow for the Summer. During our last
children’s church service I shared Jesus parable of the 2 people who built
houses, one on sand and one on rock.
(Think of the hymn On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is
sinking sand). I wanted the children to remember the foundations they learned
at Rainbow, how to count numbers, name the days of the week or months of the
year, their abcs, new math, how to share, that the bible is an important and
special book, that God loves everyone. We
are all little children in faith.
The idea that hidden things can harm us is nothing new. The
devil in the Screwtape letters or sin in 1st John can be like carbon
monoxide, odorless, colorless, invisible. If you know carbon monixide is there,
you can turn off the heat, clean out the chimmey, open a window to get fresh
air (or you are not cheap and stubborn like me, you could get a professional to
fix it). If you don’t know it’s there, it can seriously hurt or kill you. We hear news of this sort of tragedy every
year.
If you remember our series on the 10 commandments a few
weeks ago, Martin Luther uses the law as a sin detector, a loud annoying beep
or alarm that drives us to safety, to the cross of our Lord and savior Jesus
Christ. Some people who read John almost 2000 years ago and some people here
might think their sins are not forgiven, that they do not sin or they cannot
sin because of Jesus, Sin is real, it
really separates us from God, all those distractions. There are demons, evil in the world, forces
that draw us from God toward ourselves, toward temporary and useless things,
The ideas in today’s reading, that sin is real and that
Jesus really saves us from it is best explained by a passage from Paul’s letter
to the Ephesians. I cannot say it better so I share Ephesians 2 1-5 You were dead through the trespasses and sins
in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the
ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who
are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh,
following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of
wrath, like everyone else. But God, who
is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we
were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ[a]—by
grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in
the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show
the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through
faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of
works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of
life.
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