spirituality

The Advocate (Sermon May 24, 2015)

John 15:26–27 (NRSV)

Cappella Palatina di Palermo
Palermo, Italy

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. ²⁷ You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 16:4–15 (NRSV)

⁴ But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.

The Work of the Spirit

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. ⁵ But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. ⁷ Nevertheless 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. ⁸ And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰ about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; ¹¹ about 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. ¹³ When 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. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

For the past hundred years there has been a great deal of focus on the Spirit of God. At times there has been so much focus on the Spirit that we often lose sight of who the Spirit of God truly is. The Spirit is very important but if we do not keep the Spirit in context we can find ourselves chasing after something that has already left us far behind. Who is the Spirit of God and what is her purpose? I as this because there are probably as many definitions as there are denominations, and one of the very first schisms in the church largely dealt with the Spirit.

This week the purpose of the Spirit became clearer to me than it has ever before, mainly because of the term Advocate. Most of us have been taught that the term advocate was a legal term and for the most part it is, but probably not exactly how we would imagine. When we begin to imagine legal terms and positions most of us quickly visualize the courtroom scenes of a judge sitting in a high seat facing attorneys for the prosecution and the defense. When we look at this scene we often imagine ourselves sitting on the side of the defense with the accuser or Satan sitting on the prosecution side. So when we read terms like advocate we often begin to think that the advocate is sitting next to us defending our case before the judge. That is often the image that I saw, but that began to change this week. This week I was called as a witness to court, which happens often in my line of work, but something happened while there that has never happened before. I had an advocate appointed to me. The role of the advocate was to assist me with any question that I might have in preparation for the trial. He introduced me to the attorney, and assisted the attorney in helping me become as good of a witness as I could be. This opened my eyes to the role and responsibility of the Spirit of God.

The Spirit is the advocate, not the attorney. The Spirit is the liaison between, speaking for me if I am confused, translating things to me if I do not understand, and helping prepare me to face the trial set before me. The advocate works with us but we do not control the advocate. The advocate’s primary responsibility is to bring the people they are appointed to assist to the attorney and to assist the attorney to equip those involved to perform what is necessary. The Spirit is the advocate.

This opens my eyes in so many ways. Knowing this has changed my thinking and heightened my understanding. It has lifted the fog surrounding areas of confusion, because the spirit is the advocate. Who is the spirit and what is her role? Her role is to connect, interpret, help, advise, and to assist humanity to align with the needs of God.

How many of us have had skewed images of the Spirit? How often do we misunderstand the role the Spirit of God plays in relation to our faith? How often do we misalign our faith to where we end up walking in a direction contrary to the desires of God? This can all be a result of misunderstanding the role and responsibility of the Spirit.

The image of the advocate something unique to the writings of John. I think this is important to note because so much of theology or our understanding of God gains the most support by the writings of John. John, the disciple Jesus loved, writes from a perspective that differs from the other gospel writers because he focuses primarily on the relational aspects of our faith. The various roles that the personalities of God play are largely derived from the writings of John, and that is why the term advocate is so important.

From the beginning of the Friends movement we have been very aware of the role of the Spirit in our faith. Our meetings for worship are centered on listening to the Spirit and following where the Spirit leads us. In many ways the Friends movement paved the way for much of the Pentecostal movement that followed over a century after, because we were very aware that there was an active divine interaction between mankind and God. But there is a danger in focusing too closely to the Spirit.

This almost seems like a heretical thing to say but I believe it is true, and this is why the term advocate is so important. If all we do is focus on the Spirit where is our faith grounded? Jesus describes the Spirit as wind blowing, we know it is there but we do not know where it comes from or where it is going. The Irish monks would describe the spirit as the wild goose, something that could be chased but very hard if not impossible to catch. The Spirit is fluid, formless, and something that cannot be defined. Just when we think we have caught it, the Spirit flies just out of our reach. But the Spirit is important, because the Spirit is the advocate.

Let us go back to the image of the courtroom. For most of us we are on the defense side, we are accused and stand before the judge hoping for grace. We have an image that is engrained in our minds, we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are worms, and a host of other ideas. Consider for a moment that image you have in your mind. Jesus said, “Nevertheless 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.  And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment…” Jesus goes away, it is Jesus that stands before the judge in this image, and the advocate is with us in the world. The advocate is working with us directing us away from the world’s understandings and pointing us to the truth. But this is the part that flips things on end, “[Prove the world wrong] about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.” Who is condemned? Who is the one on defense? It is not us on trial, but the ruler of the world.

This really changes everything that we thought we knew for so many years, in our individualistic world view we believe that it is us on trial, that we are front and center, but we are not the ones on trial. The ruler of the world is, the accuser, or Satan. It is the job of the defense to shift blame off of the accused and place that accusation onto another, the accused become the accuser. The condemned tries to distract those around them from the truth, convincing those around them that it is not them that are guilty but someone else. They wish to confuse us about sin, righteousness, and judgment. But the advocate will guide us in truth.

This is where theology comes into play. Jesus is in the center of theology and must be. Sin is anything that distracts us from the truth of Christ. The truth of Christ is that He is fully man and fully God. He is the fulfillment of humanity, the perfect example and expression of what humanity should be. Anything that keeps us from living the life that Christ showed us is sin. And the life that Jesus showed us was a life that had a rhythm of prayer, worship, and service to others. A life dedicated to building, maintaining, and repairing relationships between God and humankind. The accused accuser wishes to distract us from that, he wishes to divide us and separate us from the truth getting us look away from Christ. He wants us to withdraw from the big picture and focus on the little things. This is sin or that is sin, when in reality sin is the broken relationship.

The accused accuser then proceeds to redefine righteousness. But what is righteousness? This is a bit foggy in the passage but Jesus says, “I am going to the Father.” That one statement does give us some direction in defining righteousness. Righteousness is heading in the right direction, toward the Father. So often we want to define righteousness as being right or living right, but this does not necessarily mean we are heading in the correct direction. Jesus gave many examples in his ministry where the religious were doing everything right according to the law and were far from righteousness. The rich young ruler was a prime example. He came to Jesus asking what he must do to gain the kingdom. Jesus listed off all the legal obligations for righteousness and the young man said I have done all of this. Then Jesus said you lack one thing, sell all your possessions, give it to the poor and follow me. There is something about that that just does not sit well with us, he did everything right yet he was not on the right path. He lacked one thing and it was that his life was not directed toward the things of the Father. He was not following in the footsteps of Jesus. He could not give up his image of righteousness for the truth of righteousness. The accused accuser wants to cause us to focus on the images of righteousness instead of the path of righteousness. He will do whatever he can to get us to step off the path, following Jesus to the Father.

This brings us to judgement. Who is being judged and why? The ability to place blame somewhere else has plagued humanity since the fall, but even that was an action of redirected blame. We judge others to redirect the attention off of our own short comings. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and the serpent blamed God. And we are each caught in the middle of the blame game. This is the method of ruler of the world, casting blame on others, providing to the masses a scape goat to direct our anger and hate. Claiming that our problems are not our own but caused by someone or something else, and all would be perfect if we just abolished the one that is blamed. The world is full of this, just scroll through Facebook for a minute and you will see a number of postings casting blame and demanding action to rid the world of the scapegoat. Big oil is the problem, Wal-Mart is the problem, ISIS is the problem, the Church is the problem, environmentalists are the problem, Obama is the problem, homosexuals are the problem, police are the problem, unions are the problem, or government is the problem. Each and every one of those issues are a problem but they are the problem because they distract us from the underlying reality that we want to refocus blame because we have been influenced by the ruler of the world, we have join in the accusations of the accused accuser.

But the Spirit is the advocate. The advocate works as the liaison guiding us in the direction we need to go to fulfill the task set before us. The Spirit is like the wind, we know it is there but we do not know where it comes from or where it is going. But we can lift our sail and let it carry us the direction we should go. The Spirit leads us down the right path, it teaches us the holy rhythms of life, and directs us to Christ who is going to the Father.  The spirit gives gifts that assist us in doing the work set before us, and that work is to guide everyone around us into truth, the truth about sin, righteousness, and judgment. And that truth is revealed to us through the life, ministry, death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

Who is the Spirit, what is the Spirit’s role? The Spirit is the advocate, the one that brings us to the one that stands before the judge. The Spirit is the one that guides us to the path of the teacher and encourages us to continue down that path toward the Father. The Spirit is the force that connects us to Christ who stands for us. The Spirit is the one that helps us become witnesses for the truth, in a world that is ruled by deception.

As we enter this time of open worship and communion as Friends, let us celebrate that we are connected to God through this powerful force he provided for us. And let us embrace the Spirit as our ever present advocate directing us down the pathway with Christ to the Father who loves us so much that he sent his only son not to condemn the world but to give us life.

Abide In Love (Sermon May 10, 2015)

1 John 5:1–6 (NRSV)

Faith Conquers the World

5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. ² By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³ For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴ for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. ⁵ Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Testimony concerning the Son of God

⁶ This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.

Over the course of the years many groups among the religious have made lists of who are Christian and who are not. It might surprise many about who are on which list. For example the author CS Lewis is considered by some as being a heretic because of his belief in purgatory and the possibility of evolution explaining aspects of creation, on this same list the reformer Martin Luther was considered a non-Christian because he raised questions about the numbers and figures in scripture. That is right the great reformer that took a stand for scripture over tradition questioned aspects of scripture and as a result some today question his very faith because of what? Honesty about doubts, differing philosophies about how God may have brought the world about or what the afterlife may be like? Great leaders today like Billy Graham are brought into question over differences of theology. Theology can only get us so far, because theology is the study of God and God is beyond our comprehension. So we must tread softly when we make claims in regard to God, we must always leave space for the possibility of a skewed human perspective.

These lists, denominations, and theological perspectives can all lead to division. Who is right, who is wrong? Which church is correct or which perspective is the most accurate? If we make a claim in any direction we risk demonizing an entire segment of the faithful and history. This is one of the reasons why Friends are very slow in making decisions and why they leave room within their theological statements, because when emotions are raised and arguments are made we can lose perspective and possibly follow our own wills instead of the will of God.

But how do we know God? How do we know which way to turn or what truth is? From the dawn of Christianity there have been different perspectives that have pulled on the faithful. Throughout the epistles we can read about various struggles that the early church faced. Every era of church history has faced something that threatens to pull the church apart or propel it into the next age. Today is no different. John wrote during one of those periods of history that faced these very things. There were people that proposed that the true faith was found only in following the ancient rites of the Jewish religion, others claimed that there was secret knowledge that could only be received by initiation and participation in secret ceremonies. We know the struggles because each epistle tells us about these struggles. John, the last apostle, writes to those that were faced with the end of an era. They have watched the apostles one by one pass to death, and as they witnessed this they began to question their faith. Things were not going exactly as they thought they would, and the ones that founded the church were no longer there to direct their steps. They lived through persecutions, they witnessed dehumanizing violence. They had also saw the miraculous, healings of diseases, people freed from bondages, and the feeding of thousands. Yet darkness always seemed to be gaining on them.

As darkness approached some began to rise up prophets calling people to walk one way or another, people began seek answers to direct their paths, yet they only saw a faint light. They cried out to God wondering if they had missed something, they began to listen to the words of man instead of waiting on the Spirit of God, and John their last apostle watched as a unified church began to divide and fragment. He watched as people of the church began to rely on their own wisdom instead of that of God. He watched and just as Jesus wept he too began to write through his tears because so many were seeking and lost yet were looking in the wrong direction.

Very quickly people began to question the faith, they deemed it in their own minds that they must do more at very least they should follow the Torah, and the fact that darkness was creeping into the world around them must mean that they must do more.  John says to them, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.” Yes that is what we said the prophets begin to argue, we must follow the law. But what are the commandments that John speaks of? They begin to consider the words that John the elder once spoke when he was younger. The words that he heard the Lord speak.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. (John 15:9-17 NRSV)

Abide in the love of God. Abide is an interesting word, because it is one that is so difficult to do. It means to remain in, to tarry, to stay in, and to dwell. So John lovingly reminds them of the commands of Jesus to wait, and dwell in the love of God. This is the most difficult thing for mankind to do because we like action. To sit around and wait is so contrary to our nature. “We must do something…anything to keep the darkness at bay.” The prophets say to the people. Yet John tells them, “abide, just wait, remember the command of our Lord. Love one another. It is not burdensome. You do not have to add to it, just remain and love.”

Just wait…just love…just do what Jesus has commanded. Do not worry about the darkness closing in around us it is merely an illusion, as long as we abide we will overcome the world. John can say this because he has seen it. He has seen the power of God working all around him. He had witnessed God coming into the lives of Jew and Gentile and totally changing everything. He has seen cities totally devoted to the worship of idols become cities earnestly seeking the one true living God. He was most likely writing this letter in the city of Ephesus, a city that contained one of the largest temples in the world devoted to the roman god Diana, and the city that Jesus spoke to in his Revelation about their zeal for truth and right doctrine. John saw many things. He saw these things because he learned the holy rhythm of Christ. A lifestyle devoted to worship, prayer, and service to others. Loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit and living the love of Christ with others.

When people participate in this holy lifestyle they begin to see change at first with one person, then multiplying as each person actively lives and participates. One by one as people turn to the lifestyle of Christ the trappings of the world begin to fall away, the darkness is overcome by the light and faith conquers the world. But is all begins with abiding in the love of God. Sitting in the love of Christ. Waiting for God and listening to His voice.

We do not have to have all the right answers, we do not have to have a theology that can answer every question of God. We do not have to save the world, because that is not our job. Jesus is the one that conquers the world. He is the one who came by water and blood, who was born and crucified for our salvation and who rose again to lift all mankind back into the glory of God. It is Jesus who does the work, we are only required to abide in him and love those he leads us to.

John encourages us to adopt the lifestyle the holy rhythm Jesus taught us to live for a reason. When we move away from this rhythm we begin to rely on our own strength and our own minds. We begin to think that we are the ones that are doing the work, that we are the ones that conquer the world. I said that Jesus said that Ephesus was seekers of truth and right doctrine, they were the strongest of the seven churches of Asia because they were earnest in their seeking of what was right, but Jesus spoke against them because they lost their first love. They pulled away from the holy rhythm and began to trust themselves and little by little they fell away from Christ and as they began to fall away darkness began to take hold of them again. So they began to seek more truth and right doctrine only to have more darkness close in, because they did not abide first, they did not abide in love.

What does this say about us today? We are living on the edge, many of us see darkness all around us. We see the world conquering the church instead of the church conquering the world. We feel as if we need take things into our own hands to speak out and force righteousness onto the people all around us. I ask one thing as we set off down this road, how long have we remained in the love of God today, yesterday, the day before, and how long will we abide in his love tomorrow? Have we adopted first a rhythm of life that reflects Christ a lifestyle that mimics Christ in all we do before we go out to conquer darkness? Have we been people loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others? I ask because John says that that is the lifestyle that will conquer the world and bring light into the darkness. Abide in love first.

The writings of John are important to us as Friends. We derive our name from the words that he pinned at the closing of the era of Church history. Our original name The Religious Society of Friends means that our religion is a society based on becoming Friends with God. The only way for this to happen is for us to abide first and then live that love with others. We base our entire belief system on the idea that we can know where God leads us if we abide in His love, and then we can respond accordingly. Ephesus sought truth above all else, they sought righteousness and were great at exposing the false teachings of many, but they lacked one thing love. They left their first love behind as they moved forward into the world they were called to minister to. They walked into the darkness without carrying the light of Christ. Their eagerness to be right above all else caused them to live in infamy throughout church history because they forgot the main point. Love conquers the world.

As we enter into this time of open worship and communion as Friends, I encourage each of us to examine our lives and our lifestyles are we abiding in love or are we walking into the darkness without our first love? Are we focusing on being right in our own minds or are we allowing the Spirit to work through us? Are we making lists or are we encouraging all we meet to abide in the love of God where they are and walking with them as they begin to enter into the holy rhythm of Christ’s life? Do we as followers of Christ fear the darkness of the world or do we trust that Jesus Christ can overcome the world just as he overcame the grave? Do we truly believe and live in the power of the resurrection of Christ?

Children of God (Sermon April 19, 2015)

1 John 3:1–7 (NRSV)

3 ¹ See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Beloved, 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. ³ And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

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

There is something that every human being seeks no matter who they are, where they are from, and what they believe. Every human being seeks acceptance into a community. You may not agree with that statement because you have a friend or an acquaintance that always seems to withdraw from any community they seem to come across, but I stand by my statement because everyone seeks acceptance somewhere. They may find it in the halls of academia, they may find it in the research labs and scientific journals, they find it in national identity, at the local pub, places of employment, or even the solitary cabin at the end of a treacherous mountain road. They seek acceptance somewhere even if that acceptance seems somewhat antisocial. They seek some place where they can be seen as little or as much as they desire. It is this reflexive drive for acceptance that often mold us into the people that we become, because as humans we seek some sort of hemostasis, or equilibrium where there is little conflict. The problem with this sort of ingrained desire is often we settle into some position that may not be reflective of who we actually are.

People have studied this human desire in many ways have watched how communities have developed different roles and places for their members, yet through all of this study through all of the desires of homeostasis often we are left in a void. We desire acceptance but we cannot find it so we pursue a different path. For some this path can be physically destructive because the only place they find acceptance is through addictive behaviors, we may question why someone chooses a life of alcoholism or drug addiction but the answer is often found within the community they reside, how they were treated, where and when they received any emotional feedback, and what behaviors were promoted by the stimulus. Others find that their only avenue for acceptance of any kind is being the victim of others, or possibly as being the smart kid in class. Within these communities little by little people fall into places and roles unoccupied by others. Warriors, athletes, popular, smart, bums, and junkies are all roles that are filled. We say there is not a cast system in western civilization and we would be right but the only way for people to move out of the shadows of those who came before them is if they have an opportunity to express and potentially find a different role.

Why am I talking about sociology? Why am I discussing anthropology? Because these are the very things that God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus overcome. John is often regarded as the Apostle of Love, for a very simple reason, he speaks about love all the time. John was one of if not the youngest of the disciples, which is why we rarely hear him speaking up within the conversations in the gospels but he was right there among the inner circle observing. He listened, watched, and was pretty quiet for someone who was known as a son of thunder. But because he was quiet when he spoke it probably carried a lot of weight, because everyone who knew him could tell that the words spoken came with much thought. I say this because the style of writing that John uses is much different than the other gospel writers, it is almost as if John wrote on a different plain than everyone else, that seemed to cut through to the very heart. And at the heart, at the very core is this strong desire to be loved and accepted.

I mentioned that John was probably one of the youngest of the apostles, but he was also the oldest as well. Tradition states that John lived to the end of the first century and probably died around the year 98. That is approximately sixty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. He saw the formation and struggles of the early church, he experienced the first wave of persecutions, and died as an elderly man. Because of his long life John played different roles within church, he was an apostle and an elder, he was one sent out and he was one that stayed and shepherded a flock. It was during this time as an elder that the writings of John emerged, later in his life after the ambition of youth had passed by and all he could really do is sit with a dear friend and speak words of encouragement to the ones who could continue to run in the race, while his friend transcribed his words.

After years of work and observation, after years of exile and persecution John spoke these words to the church, probably while he lived out the later years of his life in Ephesus. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God: and that is what we are.” Just think about that verse for a moment. “See what love the Father has given us…” This goes way beyond just the visual senses, John is asking us to contemplate, consider, pay attention to, understand, and experience what he is talking about. He is asking us to use every aspect of our being, to visualize and feel the words and the idea of love. But he asks us to explore even deeper by saying, “See what…” He is asking each of us to imagine and visualize what type, what way, how massive and deep, and how Great the love of the Father has given us. The massive and gracious love that does not take into account any worthiness of the individual that is receiving the love but a love that is given out of total selflessness. Can you see it? Can you imagine it? Can you experience it?

It is extremely difficult to imagine this massive love of God for us because we are trapped in these humanistic systems, the systems observed by sociologists and anthropologists, the systems that assign roles to individuals based on factors within the community. And that is not what God’s love is. The love that God gives forfeits all rights and privileges and gives totally to benefit someone else. John wrote about this love often: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.”(John 3:16), “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.”(John 15:13), and “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” (1 John 3:16). Love is sacrifice, love is giving everything we have for someone other than ourselves without strings attached. Can you imagine it? Can you experience it? All of this was given so that we could be called Children of God.

That brings something else into the mix. When cultures seek homeostasis often the roles that individuals play within that culture are predetermined by the previous generations and by a crazy thing called birth order. Each of us experienced this at some point. Our parents filled a certain role so we are expected to fill the same roles, our older siblings were one way and often we are expected to be the same. These roles are the starting point from which we build our lives. My sister was a runner so I must be a runner. Their father was an alcoholic and they are expected to be as well. We can either live in the role given to us or we can break out and find a new niche within the community usually by some sort of battle to obtain dominance. The battle for the first chair in band, the competition to be first in class, and campaigning for elected office are all battles to overcome the role we perceive society placing on us and our desire to obtain something greater. These are not always bad things, but what John is saying is that we have a different identity our place is determined on a totally different dimension, a dimension that the world does not and cannot understand because our father who loves us so deeply and massively gave so selflessly that we are not of this world any longer but are part of the family of God. Accepted without any conditions.

John begins this section of the letter calling us to imagine this deep immense love because often we can forget our true identity and sink back into the roles the world wishes us to be placed in. John calls us to see, to remember, to examine the vast love of God and our relationship with Him because we can easily be distracted by the things of the world that are antichrist. He pleads with all that will listen to see.

There is great power in what John is calling us to participate in, to examine our lives in the light of God can greatly change our perspective. We are children of God. Children. How often do we forget that we are children and not adults of God? We are ever growing, continuously learning to look at things just a bit differently so that maybe we can understand. We are stubborn children that sometimes need to learn manners, we are fit throwing toddlers wishing for our own ways, we are a children that will give a gift just because, a child that will do anything to get you to laugh. We are children filled with giggles, tears, snot, and skinned knees. We grow but we are not yet fully mature. We make mistakes and we amaze our Father all in the same day and sometimes at the same time. See what love the Father has given us?

But the world does not understand this, because they do not know Him. That is one of the saddest of all statements in scripture. That we are not fully known because they do not know from whom we come. They do not see, they do not experience, they have not tasted the greatness of God’s love so the world cannot understand us, and they do not know Him. The question then is why do they not know him?

This is a painful question to ask because that directly reflects on the children of God. Are we reflecting the light of Christ to the world? In the world we live under that shadow of those that came before us, in Christ we live in the light of those that came before. Are we casting a shadow or reflecting light? John goes on to speak of purity and sin, lawlessness and righteousness these are all things that relate to growth and relationship. Often we will look at others and see something we perceive as a form of sin and we begin to judge. Before we do this I want us to stop and consider something, we are children and we do not know everything. The fullness of our own life is not yet revealed so why are we so quick to judge others? With each child a parent must teach and train differently at times a stern voice is all that is needed but at other times discipline must take a different form. It is different for every child and it is different at any moment. But slowly and progressively a child learns and matures. Slowly and with persistence a child begins to take form and become the amazing individual they were created to be. The same process goes for us as God’s children. We are revealed as he reveals himself to us. And the world can only see him if we then reveal Him to them.

Everyone is looking for acceptance and a place where they can live as themselves. But the world often restricts people from living out their full potential. But as children of God we are freed from the trappings of the world and revealed in Christ. See What Love the Father has for us? Step by step, moment by moment, slowly and consistently moving us from where we began to where we will be. Children of God.

John closes this passage with a powerful statement, “everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.” This last verse asks us to examine what we are focused on. He calls us to explore the vastness of God’s love, he then shocks us by saying that the world does not know us because they do not know him, which then challenges us by asking why they do not know him if we are to reflect him in the world, then this closing statement today reveals to us why we often do not reflect Christ, because we are focusing on the wrong things. Do what is right as it is revealed to you is what John is urging us to do. He walked with Jesus for three years, he learned from the very mouth of the teacher, he participated in the holy rhythm of life that Jesus himself lived, and John even took on the role of brother when Jesus left Mary in his care. John had seen persecution, and he experienced exile, and through all of this he says do what is right no matter what the cost. How do we know what is right? How do we know what sin is? How can we reflect God to a world that does not even recognize us? It all comes down to knowing Him, experiencing the love of God and exploring life with God in the rhythm Jesus showed us. All that we have to do is Love God, embrace the Holy Spirit and live the love of Christ with others. Live a lifestyle of worship, prayer, and service not because they deserve our attention but because they are loved by God. We should selflessly give to them because God gave himself for us and that is true love that is true acceptance. See what love the Father has given us: that we should be called children of God. Let us focus on that, focus on doing right just as Jesus did, living our lives giving, serving, and encouraging because those around us are also children of God just waiting for us to see them.