We Ought to Love One Another - April 28, 2024 - Fifth Sunday of Easter - Text: 1 John 4:1-11 (12-21)

Maybe you have never thought about the question, but is it more important for you to be a Christian or a Lutheran? That may sound like a loaded question, but for me, if someone simply told me they were a Christian that would really not tell me much of anything. If they told me they were a Baptist, a Calvinist, a Methodist, or any other denomination then they would be telling me more of what is their confession of faith. So, my response is that I am a Lutheran Christian. Our text for today speaks about our confession of faith.
 

Our text begins by urging us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. We begin at verse one, “1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already” (v. 1-3). John’s concern is that we are not tossed to and fro by the many false teachings of this world which is why he encourages us to look at another’s confession to see if they are confessing and teaching the truth according to God’s Word. John does not tell us and nowhere in Scripture does God tell us or ask us to look into another’s heart to see if their teachings are true or false. To look into another’s heart, that only God can do.
 

Instead of attempting to look into another’s heart, we are to look at another’s confession and we do this by listening to, reading, really hearing what that person confesses. Those who are from God confess the Jesus is true God and true man. Those are the anti-Christ, who are not of God, are those who do not confess that Jesus is true God and true man. When I tell you to look at another’s confession, I do not leave myself out of that exhortation. Listen to what I preach, teach, and proclaim. If I preach anything other than Jesus Christ as true God and true man then I do not proclaim the true Word of God. If I preach anything other than salvation by grace through faith then I am preaching something other than what God’s Word proclaims.
 

The best “test” I can give you, and you have heard me say this before, is listen to who is running the verbs, who is doing what. One way to find who is running the verbs is to listen to the pronouns. You remember pronouns from English, those are those little words which take the place of nouns, words like I, you, she, he, it, and so on.  Listen to who is doing what. Am I preaching about what you and I must do to be saved, how we have to work for our salvation. Or am I preaching about what God has done for us in Christ Jesus to save us? Whenever you hear the I, the we, and the you gotta words, red lights should flash and alarms go off in your head, because these are law words. The words of Holy Scripture are those words which tell us what God has done, what Jesus has accomplished, what our Lord has given us, those are gospel words.
 

At this point someone will usually make the statement something like this, “but we are not supposed to judge people.” Let me assure you, there is a difference between judging someone and recognizing that what they are teaching is false. Likewise there is a difference between judging someone and recognizing that they are sinning. To recognizing sin is to see that someone is not living in accord with Holy Scripture. To judge someone is to condemn them to hell, which only God can do.
 

When we test the spirits we find that there are those who believe according to the text of the Word of God and there are those who believe according to the text of the world. The text of the world is that of work righteousness, what I must do and accomplish for my salvation. The text of the Word of God is what God has done and continues to do for me, how He gives forgiveness, how He gives life and salvation.
 

With a reminder that the one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world, John moves on to tell us more about the one who is in us, namely God. God is love. The word John uses is one we have heard before, it is the word, agape. Agape is defined as a God-like love, a love which is a selfless concern for another person, so much so that you would give your life for that person. Agape or God love is also love with a purpose and an object. God does not just love - nothing. God loves us because He is love.  In our text John says it this way, “7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (v. 7-8).
 

To fully understand this agape love we must recognize that God loves us first. Going back to our text we read, “9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (v. 9-10). If God had not loved us, if He had not sent His only Son to die for us, we would not know what real love is and we would not be able to love others.
 

We love in response to, in imitation of God’s love for us.  That is John’s exhortation in verse eleven (v. 11), “11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  Notice that he does not say that we ought to love others so God will love us, but since, because God loved us, only because God loved us first can we love one another.
 

What does this mean? In order to love because God loved us we must understand our situation. Our situation is this, that we live in the world, but we are not of the world. Hymn 748 describes our situation best, “I’m but a stranger here, heaven is my home.” We are constantly tempted to be of the world. To be of the world is to have the “live and let live” philosophy. To be of the world is to think that “what I do is no one’s business but my own,” “I can do whatever I want as long as I do not hurt anyone else,” “you only live once so you have to go for the gusto,” “I deserve all the pleasures of life,” “I deserve a break today,” “I am entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of my own happiness, whatever that means to me,” these are some of the phrases that the world would have us buy into, that the world would have us take on as our creed and confession.
 

The biggest temptation of the world is the temptation to deny Christ. Of course the world is very subtle in this temptation. No one would ever come up to you and ask you to deny Christ. Rather the world does it by testing your priorities, by asking you to make decisions that put your faith to the test. Which is more important, breakfast with your family, or Bible study with your spiritual family? Which is more important, taking time for family devotions or making sure everyone gets to their social activities? Which is more important, Wednesday worship services, or the sporting events that have been planned? Which is more important, sleeping in or getting up for Bible class? Which is more important, being in Divine Service every Sunday or every other Sunday, because there is something more important on those odd Sundays? You have all heard the cliche, “actions speak louder than words.” What are your actions saying? What are your actions saying is most important in your life? As I have said before, we do not need to tell others what our priorities are, we live them.
 

John tells us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. We translated that into listening to a person’s confession to see if what they teach is from God. For ourselves that means that we too are to live our confession of Christ. We live our confession by recognizing God’s love for us first. If we do not recognize that without Christ we are lost and condemned sinners, then we have denied Christ. We live our confession by talking about and pointing to our Savior, Jesus Christ. We use phrases such as, Jesus chose me as His child. Jesus made me His child at my baptism. Jesus dedicated His life to me.  Jesus was obedient, even unto death on a cross for me. Because of Jesus I am saved.
 

We reflect the love God has for us, though imperfectly, to others. We reflect God’s love not just through our actions, although it is our actions which others see, but we reflect God’s love with our words and with our thoughts as well. It is our unseen thoughts that are at the heart of our words and actions so we pray that the Lord would guide our very thoughts so that they may guide our words and determine our actions, so that ultimately all we think, say, and do will be for the extending of God’s kingdom, the strengthening of His people and the praise and glory of His Holy Name.
 

John reminds us that perfect love casts out fear. John says, “18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (v. 18). In other words, our sin, which deserves punishment, brings us fear. Yet, God’s perfect love, and His perfect love is seen in the sending of Jesus to be our substitute, God’s perfect love, God’s love for us, first, and our response of faith casts out fear, fear of physical death, even fear of eternal death so that we have confidence of eternal life.
 

And finally, again as John told us last week, so he reminds us again this week, we love because He first loved us, picking up at verse nineteen, “19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (v. 19-21). God initiates, we reflect. And I will get back to this thought in a moment.
 

The reciprocal of this is that if there is no reflection that means no love for God, in other words, when we fail to love others, when we fail to offer words of encouragement, when we fail to build each other up as brothers and sisters in Christ, when we fail to help and support each other through our giving of ourselves, that is a reflection of no love. And so we see the importance of the fact that God first loves us.
 

God initiates and we reflect. It always starts with God, then it flows from us back to Him and to each other, and from there it only gets magnified.
 

In just a moment we will have the opportunity to confess our faith and we will do this with the words of the creed. My prayer for you is that the Lord will bless your confession and profession of faith and continue to work in you by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the means of grace, to strengthen and keep you in this faith that you confess. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Believe and Love - April 21, 2024 - Forth Sunday of Easter - Text: 1 John 3:16-24

Today is the fourth Sunday of Easter, already. Can you believe it, Easter was four weeks ago? Today is also what has been traditionally known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Today gets the name “Good Shepherd Sunday” because the Gospel reading is the account of Jesus telling us that He is our Good Shepherd. Four weeks ago we witnessed just how good a shepherd Jesus is in that He did lay down His life for us as He suffered and died on the cross. In our First Lesson for this morning we hear Peter and John bear witness of Jesus and the fact that it is only by faith in Jesus that we have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. In our text John helps us to understand what it means for us to be Christians and how, by the work of the Holy Spirit, we are to be imitators of Christ.
 

First, John sounds a little like James in telling us that faith shows itself in action. We begin at verse sixteen, “16By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (v. 16-18).
 

Notice again as we have said many times before, God is the prime mover, or better said, as we hear in Hebrews, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith”(Heb. 12:2a). It all begins with God. God loves us first and this love is seen in Jesus who gave His life for ours. Jesus did not have to give His life, but He freely gave His life. Because of His great love for us, a love we really cannot even fathom, He gave up the glory that was His in heaven, took on human flesh and blood, being born as a man, lived a perfect life, doing all that we are to be doing and cannot, obeying all the commandments perfectly, fulfilling all the promises and prophecies, perfectly and then He took our sins upon Himself, all our sins and all the sins of all people of all places of all times and He paid the price for our sins. This love is indeed a great love.
 

God loves first and our response of love and faith is that we are to be willing to do the same for others. As Christians, being loved by God, being given faith by God, being forgiven by God, we respond by loving others and our love shows itself in this, that we are willing to give our lives for others as Jesus gave His life for ours.
 

Certainly God knows that this giving of our lives for others is almost impossible, and so, as John tells us, we respond by doing even less than giving our lives, that is, we respond by simply giving help to others. We help others by offering kind words, by offering words of encouragement. We help others by offering to help with giving of our time and our talents. At times, we even help others by offering our financial resources.
 

God loves us and we love Him and others. We love, not simply in words, but in actions. This reflects what James tells us when he says that “faith without works is meaningless.” Even Martin Luther who worked to reform the church which believed one was saved by faith and works, helps us understand that we are saved by grace, through faith apart from works, even Luther reminds us that the natural response of forgiveness and faith is to do good works.
 

John reassures us that God knows what is in our hearts. We pick up at verse nineteen, “19By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him”(v. 19- 22).
 

How well we understand that as human beings and as adults we tend to be harder on ourselves than others are on us. Likewise as Christians, as we grow in sanctification we tend to be harder on ourselves, thinking we should do more. And perhaps there are times that we should do more, yet, always remembering that God never asks more of us than He knows we can give.
 

God knows what is in our hearts. God knows if we are cheerful givers or if we are giving begrudgingly. God knows if we are refusing to help others because we really cannot help or if there is some other reason. It may be frightening to know that God knows so we might also remind ourselves that God also knows that Jesus died to pay the price for our sins.
 

Our confidence, then, is in God, not in ourselves. We cannot do enough to save ourselves. We cannot give enough to save ourselves. We cannot earn or pay for our salvation. Our salvation, our faith, our forgiveness come from outside of us, not inside of us. Our confidence is in God who knows all things and who has taken care of all things for us.
 

With confidence we pray to God, knowing He will answer according to what He knows is best for us, according to His good and gracious will. Interestingly enough, I believe we do not have so difficult a time praying for God’s will to be done, but I do believe we have a more difficult time accepting God’s will, whatever that will may be. So, perhaps we would do well to pray, not only, “Thy will be done,” but also, “Lord, help me to accept Your will, even and especially when You say ‘No,’ And when Your will is not what I desire.” And all the while understanding that God does know what is best for us, even more than we know what is best for ourselves.
 

John talks about obeying God’s commands. What are God’s commands? We pick up at verse twenty-three, “23And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24Whoever keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us” (v. 23-24).
 

Normally when we hear about or think about the commands of God we think in terms of the Ten Commandments. And certainly as we go through the Ten Commandments we cannot help but understand the fact that not only can we not keep the commandments, but we fail miserably and we are indeed quite sinful. And yet, there is more to the commandments than simply being a list of dos and don’ts. In our text, John summarizes what Jesus summarizes; God’s command is to love Jesus and one another. Love is the fulfillment of the law. If we could love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind then we would not break the first three commandments. If we could love our neighbor as ourselves, then we would not break the last seven commandments. The difficulty is that in and of ourselves we cannot do either of these things.
 

John reminds us of God’s command, that we believe in Jesus and love one another. At the same time, notice that it is God who loves first. God loves first, giving us the ability to love. Here again we see God as the author and perfecter of our faith. God loves and we are loved. God gives and we are given to. God does and we are done to. God loves and He gives us the ability to love.
 

As God loves us and gives us the ability to love others, interestingly enough, then, as we love, God loves even more. Here again, as we always know, we cannot out give God. We cannot out give Him financially speaking, understanding that He is the one who gives to us in the first place. And now, here we understand that we cannot out give God in a loving way. We cannot out love God, remembering that He first loves us and He gives to us to be able to love others.
 

God is the beginning, the alpha, the author of life. He gives, strengthens and keeps in faith through His means of grace. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who continues to care for us today, He is the one who gave His life on the cross and the one through whom all good things are given.
 

What does this mean? God does first, He loves, He does, He gives. And we are loved, we are done to and we are given to. Apart from God we are lost and condemned persons.
 

God loves first and then God works in us to respond. Yet, even here John gives us a warning. Back in verse seventeen we were reminded that if we do not respond, if we do not love, if we do not give, these are ways we refuse the gifts God has to give. As John says, “How does God’s love abide in him?” How does God’s love abide in one who does not respond to all the Lord has to give? It does not. Thus, we see that a response of faith is not only natural, but also necessary. To not respond, then, is truly to refuse the gifts God has to give. To respond, however, means even greater blessings.
 

John reminds us that as we respond, God loves and gives even more. Here again we are back to that old cliché, “You cannot out give God.” It is amazing when you think about it, God first loves us, then He helps us to love others and finally He loves us even more. God first gives to us, He gives us life at conception; new life, even eternal life through the waters of Holy Baptism; the ability as well as gifts and talents and a job in order to work, to earn a wage and He moves in us to return a portion to Him. And the more we return to Him, the more blessings He has in store for us. This then may and hopefully will become a reciprocal cycle, that of the Lord giving, our returning, the Lord giving more and our returning more.
 

As this reciprocal cycle continues we are then even more reminded of the importance of regular and diligent use of the means of grace. As Luther attested, the more he knew he had to do in a day, the more he knew he needed to spend time in prayer at the beginning of the day. The Lord provides, not only for our physical well being, not only by giving us life and treasure, but also by giving us talents and time. In all areas of life, we cannot out give God. The more He gives to us, the more we return to Him, the more yet, He still gives to us. And in Malachi He asks that we test Him in these things.
 

There is, what I call a camp song, and I know it is not the greatest song from a theological point of view, but I believe the chorus somewhat summarizes this text for this morning. I know you have heard it, it says, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” John is telling us this morning that the world will know we are Christians by our love, but even more, by our response of faith, the giving of our whole lives over to the Lord as He has first given His life for ours. May the Lord, the Good Shepherd of the sheep, of us, who gave His life for us, continue to work in and through you so that you might show your faith through your life, in response to all that He has done, does and will continue to do for you. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

He Is the Atoning Sacrifice - April 7, 2024 - Second Sunday of Easter - Text: 1 John 1:1 - 2:2

There is a story about a Greek man who brought his wife to America following World War II. He and his wife settled in a Southern city. Although they spoke little English and had very little money, they set out to open a restaurant, which unfortunately quickly went broke and to top it off his wife was pregnant. When things seemed the worst he went up the street to the local Christian church and asked several of the elders if they would lend him enough money to try once more at his business. He promised that he would pay the men back even if it meant mowing their lawns. The businessmen of the church, who themselves were still picking up their businesses, after the war, dug deep down into their pockets and came up with the money. The Greek worked twenty hours a day to get his restaurant started. As time went by more and more people came to his restaurant. Over four decades later the Greek retired and his sons run the corporation that runs a chain of restaurants. The Greek and his wife occasionally serve as greeters in one of the restaurants and always greet the people coming in the door with the words, “God bless America.”
 

That is a nice story. Whether it is true or not I cannot tell you, but I can tell you this, it is the kind of story that we often hear and the kind that makes you proud to be an American. But before you stick your chest out and hold your head high we should look at our text and see where God fits into this picture, other than the words, “God bless America.”
 

Our text begins with words that remind us of the beginning of our Bible as well as the beginning of John’s gospel. “1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (v.1). John reminds us that the Word of life was from the beginning. The Word of Life is our Bible, Holy Scripture, the Word which proclaims God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Word of Life is True God. God is that Word which said, “Let there be,” and there was, the creation of all things. The Word of Life is that Word which never changes. Theses, hypotheses, theories, all these come and go and change from time to time, but the Word of Life never changes.
 

The Word of Life is also Jesus Christ. Jesus is the oral Word of God, that Word of promise first made to Adam and Eve and the beginning of the Christian church. Jesus is the written Word of God, that Word given to Moses and the prophets. Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies from of old.  Jesus is true God born in human flesh. The Word of life is true God, conceived by the Holy Spirit and true Man, born of the Virgin Mary.
 

The Word of Life is the one who John says he has heard, seen, looked at, and touched. With these words, John gives a fourfold witness of who is Jesus. We remember that no case can be made with only one witness, at least two witnesses are needed. Here John gives us a complete fourfold witness that Jesus is the Word of Life because he has personally heard Jesus, seen Him, looked at Him and touched Him. Jesus is the Word made flesh.
 

Moving on to verse five of our text John says, “5This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (v. 5). Here John uses the two extremes of light and dark to make his point. The symbolism of darkness is that of chaos, evil, sin, and so on. Darkness is literally absence from light. People who do evil do not want to be seen doing the evil they do so rather than do their evil in the light they do it in the absence of light, in darkness.
 

The symbolism of light is that of being pure, holy, perfect, like God, and so on. Light reveals imperfections. Light dispels the darkness. Light brings life. Light helps us to see where we are going, to help us to stay on the straight and narrow path which leads to eternal life. God is light and in all these examples we can exchange the word God for light and we can say that God reveals imperfections. God dispels the darkness. God brings life. God helps us to see where we are going, to help us to stay on the straight and narrow path which leads to eternal life.
 

Light overcame darkness. On the cross, Jesus Christ, true God, the Light of the world, and true man, suffered and gave His life for the sins of all people of all times of all places. More importantly, Jesus gave His life for you and for me, personally.
 

Now comes the crux of the situation as John tells us in verse eight (8) to ten (10), “8If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” First, you may recognize these words as a part of our liturgy on Sunday mornings. These words remind us that, if we claim to be without sin we claim we do not need a Savior. Unfortunately this seems to be what many people want to claim in our world today, or at least that some people believe they are not that big of sinners. This claim is the implication of our opening story, not that we need anything from God, but that we are self made people, that we got to be where we are by our own designs and that we do not need anyone, let alone any god, to help us out. Yet, we still want to profess some type of religion, maybe even Christianity, by saying, “God bless America!”
 

Maybe the question we all want to ask is, “How sinful do we need to claim to be?” If we only need to claim to be a little sinful, then, that we can do. We are a very proud people here in America.  We really do not want to believe that Jesus had to die too much for us, we really are pretty good people. Jesus had to die for the other guy, maybe even a lot for the other guy. It is similar to the comments that are made when, on the way out after the service, someone says to me, “You really told them, pastor.” The implication being that I am not the sinner to which you were speaking. The point really hits home when I hear statements like, “I did not like what you said about, and you name the sin, it sounded like you were talking to me.” How sinful do we need to claim to be? In a past issue of the Lutheran Witness Dr. Moellering talked about our need to remember Psalm 22:6, “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.” This is what we sing in hymn 437, “Alas! and did my Savior bleed, And did my Sov’reign die? Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?” Interestingly enough, as a side note, the Lutheran Worship hymnal changed that last line to “For sinners such as I?” Thankfully our Lutheran Service Book changed it back.
 

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” If we claim to have done nothing for which we need forgiving, how can God forgive us? And to claim to be without sin is gift refusal so that our sin remains on us. But, “if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” And confess our sins we do. I hope and pray that as we read and speak the words of confession in our liturgy that we hear and mean the words, “we poor sinners confess unto you that we are by nature sinful and unclean and that we have sinned against you by thought, word, and deed.” And I hope and pray that as we use the words of the other service of confession we hear and mean the words, “I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserve Your temporal and eternal punishment.” Yes, Jesus has already taken care of our sins. He has already earned their forgiveness. By denying our sins, by claiming to be without sin we can deny claiming that forgiveness as our own. Denying our sins is denying forgiveness and then we are be left to our own devices to save ourselves, then “we would deceive ourselves and the truth would not be in us.”
 

The very reason John is writing is so that we might confess our sins and be given Jesus forgiveness as we read in the last two verses of our text, “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. 2He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (2:1,2). We have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, we have an Advocate, Jesus Christ. Jesus pleads our case before God the Father, our eternal judge.
 

Not only does He plead our case, He is also our atoning sacrifice, that is, He gave His life for ours. When we claim our sins, when we confess our sins, when we admit our wrongs, Jesus freely takes the punishment for our sins so that we might be seen as sinless before the Father in heaven.
 

All this He does because of His pure love for us, for all which it is our privilege to respond by thanking and praising, serving and obeying Him, so that we may live under Him in His eternal kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. Simply put, it is all God’s giving and all our being given to, and anything else is considered work righteousness.
 

What does this mean? This means that instead of living our lives as if we have anything to do with where we are, and that means for all our circumstances of life, whether physical or spiritual, that we live our lives sincerely giving thanks and praise to God, not like the couple in our opening story. This means that we readily and freely admit and give credit where credit is due, to our Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This means that we give God the glory for putting us where we are and giving us His Holy Spirit so that we might serve Him in all we thank, say and do, so that His Kingdom may be extended, that His people may be strengthening, and that above all praise and glory may be given to His Holy name.
 

Finally this means that we give thanks and joyfully respond as the Holy Spirit works in us our response of faith; to be in Divine Service and Bible class as often as offered; to volunteer to serve according to the gifts and abilities He has given us to serve and sometimes even to learn new abilities; to invite especially our unchurched family and friends to Divine Service and Bible Class to hear God’s Word; and ultimately to live lives to the praise and glory of His Holy Name. To God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.