A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on November 1, 2020 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on 1 John 3:1-3. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the First Epistle of John, the third chapter:
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
The elder speaking to John in his revelation was certainly right: these are the times of the great tribulation. It has become very commonplace for evangelical Christians today to spend their time looking into the last days, figuring out where we are before Christ returns. And yet, all their efforts are in vain. There was a novel series a couple decades ago now called “Left Behind,” fictionalizing the last days, trying to stuff Revelation into a box they wanted to see through what they called the rapture. There’s no rapture. John Hagee has spent decades looking for signs. A few years ago, he freaked out when we had four blood moons in a year. All of it amounted to nothing. These people want to figure out when the tribulation is so they know when Jesus is coming back, how much time they have left.
But, the elder in Revelation tells us that the vision that John sees is of every believer from all time and space. There are none left on earth, but all have been raised in Christ, and, referring to all of us and the whole Church, we are the ones who are in the great tribulation now and look forward to our release from it.
Let’s be honest. Is this world perfect? No. Is this world good? No. Is this world sustainable? No. There are good things that happen, and there are great joys that come to us. But, on the whole, this world stinks. From the moment we are conceived in our mothers’ wombs, we are dying. We’re hurtling onward toward death. When you get in your 20s, you start feeling older. 30s and 40s, you start to realize your body is beginning to betray you. 50s, 60s, 70s, well, it’s a trip there, too. There are taxes and bills. There is random violence. People we love are taken away from us. We suffer. We can be persecuted. No, this life is not good; it is the tribulation.
But, while this life is not good, we have great hope that it will all work for our good because we are in Christ. The pagan has hope only for this life, and that hope one day comes to an end. The Christian has no hope in this life, but their hope is fulfilled in Christ when they are raised into eternal life forever. Everything in this life is propelling us to that day, so, even though we are dying from our conception, we are getting ever closer to truly living.
You are beloved by God. He has given you His love in Jesus Christ, a love that will guide you and sustain you through this life and into the next. That love is why you are called His children. He has marked you on your forehead with the waters of Baptism and there you have been made His child forever. It’s a blessing to have this mark, it’s a blessing to walk in the love of the Lord. It opens for us the doors of the Church, where the love of God is poured out for you in the water and in the bread and in the wine and in the Word. The love of God brings to you the crucifixion of Christ through God’s own means of grace, which are the way He brings that grace He has toward you to you. He gives it to you because you are His child and He takes care of you. Though the rest of the world is awful and horrible, in the Church, God gives you every good thing. And it is good, it is so food, that we are overjoyed at it, or we should be.
But, the world doesn’t understand this. When we lose a loved one we hurt, yes. When our candidate loses an election, we’re angry, yes. When things don’t go our way, we are frustrated, yes. But these emotions don’t and shouldn’t guide our actions or our message. When these things happen, we are able to say along with Job, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Why can we be calm over the tragedies of this world? Why can we bless God and not curse Him? Because we are His children and we shall be saved out of all this tribulation to be joined with all those love who have died in the faith. Because we are His children and we shall be saved out of all this tribulation to see that God reigns over all things, even the nations and kingdoms of the earth. Because we are His children and we shall be saved out of all this tribulation to understand that our ways are not the Lord’s ways and His ways are better than we can imagine.
The world sees this response from us and has no idea what we’re doing. They hate God and His children, but even if they tried, they’d never be able to understand our contentment in Christ. They cannot and will not understand us. We’re not the ones who riot when things don’t go our way. We’re not the ones who seek to overthrow governments. We’re the ones who bless the name of the Lord in all circumstances.
And we do this because we know something better is coming. This world is hard and awful, but we are saved. We are saved and we are redeemed through the blood of Christ brought to you in His Word and Sacraments. We have a glimpse of who we are, who God sees us as, but we are not yet complete. Our bodies will die and decay. Our hearts will struggle with sin. Our hands hurt others as much as our words. We deserve hell for our thoughts, words, and deeds. We deserve to be punished for what we have done and what we have left undone. And we repent of all this and we are forgiven, but we are not complete. What we will be has not yet appeared. We are soul and body now, but we are shallow and sinful. Sin has infected us. When Christ returns, when He appears, we will be soul and body forever, but no longer shallow and sinful, but whole and incorruptible. We shall be like Jesus.
What does this mean? It means that we should fear and love God for He has the power to raise us from our graves, knit bone to bone, sinew to sinew, cover us with flesh, and put our souls back into our bodies. There we shall shine with the light of Christ, for He will dwell in us no longer occluded by sin. Christ dwells richly in you now, but that light of the transfiguration that Christ has in His deity is blocked by our sin. It is hard to see the light in us in this life. But, in the life to come, we shall be cleansed forever, no longer struggling with sin, nor grief, nor shame. Instead, we shall gather around the throne of God and worship Him in His temple. We will be purified, as we are being purified now.
Purification is a process. It’s not done all at once, but several times. This life is like a big purificator. Everything in life is propelling us toward the day of Christ’s return, and everything in this life is serving as a test of fire to bring out the purity that God has placed in us. You will be pure as He is pure. What joy there is in this.
We don’t have to worry about where we are in the grand scheme of life, awaiting Christ’s return. You are right where you need to be, in His Church, worshipping Him in spirit and in truth. This is practice. This is practice for what is coming, when we are before Christ, having washed your robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb. It is practice for when you are standing before the throne of God, and serving Him day and night in His temple It is practice for when He who sits on the throne will shelter you with His presence. It is practice for when you shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. It’s practice for when the sun shall not strike you, nor any scorching heat. It’s practice for when the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be your shepherd, and He will guide you to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from your eyes.
That’s what we’re doing here. As we look to celebrate the lives of the saints who have gone before us and are with Christ, as we seek to emulate them in their righteousness, as we miss them and long for the day when we are reunited with them, we’re practicing for that day. We long to be with the whole Church, and we will. And we pray that the Lord Jesus would come soon and make that a reality, and He will. We don’t know when that will be, but we know it is coming. And you can be assured that you will have this hope fulfilled for you are a saint of God in Christ. Right now, you are one of His saints. You are holy, set apart for God. You are righteous by the declaration of Christ. You are redeemed by His blood. You are a saint of God, you are His beloved child, and no matter how bad the tribulation gets, you will be with Him in glory just as you are with Him now and He with you. He is here now in the Word, in the water, in the bread, in the wine. He is here now, and we look forward to the day when we are there, with Him and all those whom we love. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. In His name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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