A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on April 18, 2021 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on 1 John 3:1-7 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 John’s First Epistle, 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. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! See what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. It is an amazing thing that God calls you his child, for indeed, there was a time when we were not reconciled to the father. And Jesus rightly says of us, says of those who have no faith in him, that we are not children of God, but children of Satan, children of the devil. It is true that, as children of the devil, our corrupted nature desires to sin. We love to sin. I'd like you just to think within your own head, I don't need examples, certainly, but think of the sins that you commit, think of those pet sins that keep bothering you throughout all of your life, and when you do them or when you're tempted to do them, you know that there is a feeling of, well, goodness, that arises within you.
As you're thinking about them, it could be that they lead to some type of physical pleasure. It could be that they lead into some kind of emotional pleasure. It could be the pleasure of putting somebody down instead of seeing yourself below them, it could be anything. And I think if we are truly honest, we would look at our sin and say, it is absolutely true that I feel good when I sin. And that is because according to our corrupted nature, we are children of Satan. And because we are children of Satan, then we rejoice in our sins for we are doing the works of our father. After all, Satan's work is to lead you away from God.
You know, it was said once in a world without God, in a world where the devil ruled everything, everything would be in order, everybody would go to church on Sunday, everybody would pay attention in school, but still there would be nothing but sin reigning in our hearts. It's not that the devil doesn't love order. He does, but that he loves order according to his word and not according to the word of God. In fact, it would be that the devil would come to us and order everything greatly against us, greatly in his favor, greatly so that all things would be to his benefit. If we are to listen to him, if we are to listen to our natures, this is what we would discover. We would discover that we want to do the evil things, but thanks be to God that through the blood of Jesus Christ, we have been redeemed. And in his blood, we find that we are called the children of God, we are born of God.
It is a great and wonderful thing that our God has made us one with Jesus Christ. There are a couple of different images that actually pop up in the scriptures for this: one is that marital image that Christ is the bride groom and the church is his bride. And what do a bride groom and bride do, but consummate their marriage. And while we're certainly not talking about that physical interaction that a husband and wife would have when it comes to Jesus, we are certainly talking about a way in which we are bonded with Jesus and become one flesh with him. Other ways in which the scriptures speak: when we are baptized, we are buried into his death and when we then come up out of the water we are risen in his life. And in this way we are in Christ.
It's true too, that the scriptures talk about the Holy spirit coming to us and indwelling us, and, in this, bringing to us Jesus. And thus, we become a temple of the Holy spirit where God dwells in you. And if God dwells in you, you also then dwell in God. And John here says the same. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Right? And in this way, the world does not know us, it is because we abide in him. And if we are abiding in him, then we will eschew, we will avoid the things that would lead us into sin.
Now, again, being honest with ourselves, how good are we at this? How good are we at avoiding sin? After all, is it not easy to harbor hate in our hearts? Is it not easy to fall into gossip or lust? Or if we were to think if I just take this thing, no one's really going to notice, right? Even a small thing. And I tell the kids this and the school, even taking something as small as a paper clip makes you a thief in the eyes of God. It's true. All of our sins are so great. But even if we were to commit just one sin, it would be enough to damn us. But again, we are children of God.
So how can John call us children of God if we know that our hearts want to sin? Well, it's very clear. John makes a very clear statement that everyone who makes a practice of sinning, and I think we could even read this, not just a practice of sinning, but everyone who practices sinning, thus practices lawlessness. Think of a hobby or a habit that you have and think about how often it took you to practice that hobby, that habit to become adept at it. I don't know about you, but for me, the first thing that pops into my head is my pipe smoking, where I take a pipe, and it took me a while to figure out how to put the tobacco into the pipe in just the right way and pack it in its different layers to make sure that all of it would go down evenly as I'm smoking in just the right manner. Otherwise you end up with a really sour mouth. You could end up with a really hot pipe. You could end up with the pipe burning out too early. It just all depends. It took me a while to figure out how to do this. And I had to keep practicing and I’ve got to say, it's a joyful practice, right? That habit of just getting something right, is long and hard, but the end result is a joy.
Now think about it in terms of sin. If we are to abide in sin, if we're going to abide in lawlessness, if we are going to practice sin, it is the same thing. If we continually work to figure out ways that we can sin, and you still can, because in this life, you will fight against that corrupted nature that you have. But if we are working to practice sin, if we're working to get good at it, this is what John is talking about. That if we are practicing at sin, we have no life in Christ, for indeed, what we're doing is we are putting our life in lawlessness. And if we're putting our life in lawlessness, we are literally putting our life, we are putting our abode, we are dwelling in Satan. Now that should be a very clear message for us. Don't do it.
That might be easier said than done, but I will tell you the truth that the scriptures make no demand upon you that you cannot accomplish that by the power of Jesus Christ. By the Holy spirit dwelling inside of you, you have been given the power to not sin. Now, that does not erase your sinful nature, that does not erase that temptation to sin, that does not even give or address the fact that you want to give into that sin. But there is an idea in scripture that, illuminated by Christ, as we go forth in our lives, we make the choice to sin or to not sin. Having Christ, you’ve been freed from sin. Having been freed from that slavery by Christ, by his all atoning death, you may now choose to sin or not.
We know that the unbelieving world has no choice. They've not been freed from their slavery to sin. Indeed, they are slaves and will never know it, but you know what it is that you have been freed from. You know what it is that Christ has set you free from. You know that you have left sin behind and have been claimed by Christ. And armed with that knowledge, you may go forward and choose to live righteously. Now you don't do this to win your salvation. You don't do this to make yourself holy, you do this because you are a child of God. God loves you and claims you as his own. You now want to, as a Christian, do the things that God would want you to do. And what are those things? Well, we know very simply, if we want to sum it all up, we are to love God and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Notice who's missing from this: ourselves. We are not to love ourself as we do God. We are not to love ourselves as we would our neighbors. In fact, we put ourselves at the very last. You’ve heard the acronym, JOY, perhaps? As the Christian life goes on and we look to whom we are to serve first. It is Jesus, then others, and then, finally, ourselves, yourself. That's where the Y comes in. And I think that's not a bad way to look at how it is that we are to live in our Christian life. We put God first, we obey God rather than man, but then we obey man. And in that way, we, in obedience to God, can look at our fellow man and say, how is it that I may serve you this day?
And as we go forward then, and being busy serving both God and man, we will not even have time to sin. If we are constantly putting others before ourselves, you just won't have the time to do the bad stuff. In fact, I think we've noticed that, through this pandemic, there has been a rise in lawlessness. Look at the news, follow all of this. And why would that be? It is because we have had so much time to ourselves. We've had so much time on our hands, not serving others, but have been locked inside of our homes that finally, that sin pushes us to break free and pushes everything into lawlessness and enjoy.
Then, as we see this pandemic ending, I would posit we will start to see a little bit of sanity restored to the world. Maybe not completely, because we know that this world belongs to its father, Satan, but still, it should be that as we go forward, we'll start seeing some of this civic lawfulness. But the Christian, always, pandemic or not, should be busy with the business of serving others.
We see this in the apostles. As we looked at the book of Acts today, they serve the man who is lame by performing a miracle, not by their power, but by the power of Christ. And then preaching to the crowds that had gathered around them marveling at these things, they said, put your trust in Christ, turn again, repent that you might indeed be saved. They were too busy with the business of others to worry about themselves. In fact, as they went about this, we know the end of the apostles, that all but John died being persecuted, martyred for the faith. They put others before themselves, served as a living example, even today, for us to follow.
And it is what we saw in our gospel lesson, that Jesus would come and speaks peace to those who are gathered. In fact, all that he did, was for their benefit, even when he demanded that they give him some fish to eat, that was for their benefit, not his own. After all, does Jesus need to eat now that he has resurrected from the dead. Of course he does not. He has been making full use now of his divine nature. However, he eats not for his own sake, but that they may know that he is truly raised from the dead, not just a spiritual resurrection, but a physical resurrection in which his spirit dwells in him forever. Jesus concerned himself with the needs of others and, again, serves as an example for us.
Jesus Christ is our example to follow and we should say, I want to be like him for he is my bride groom. I want to be like him for, he is my Lord. I want to do the things he's doing because he is my God. And so it is, my friends, that as Christians, as children of God, we busy ourselves with the things of necessity for others, and, in Christ, because we live in Him, we will find these works pleasing.
God, because you have been baptized, caused you to hear his word preached to you, caused you to believe that the supper comes to you and you trust that it is Jesus, his true body and his true blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. He caused that faith to dwell in you faith and now you may do the things of God. And what does that look like? Serving your neighbor. And when we do that, we can see that we are truly in Christ for, we don't do it for our glory, we don't do it for our benefit. We do it because we love those that God has put into our lives. Whoever practices righteousness, they are righteous because Jesus Christ is righteous, right? Whoever practices righteousness, but not by their own righteousness, they are righteous because Christ has declared it to be so. And when God speaks, it will indeed happen.
Hope in our Lord, my friends. And when we do this, you make yourself pure. Again, this is not by your work, but by your hope, which is placed in Jesus Christ, in his resurrection from the dead. And in that resurrection, you find that you have been made pure. And now you may do the pure things. It's kind of like when you take a glass of water and filter it out. If you've got a glass of water with mud, all mixed into it and, and you put a filter underneath it and you pour it into a bowl and you do it again, you know, you get rid of the mud, you do it again, you get rid of the mud, you do it again. You get rid of the mud. Eventually you will find that you have a clean glass of water. And so it is with Christ, that he is the filter by which we see this world. He is the thing through which all our good deeds are poured. And as this happens, we become pure and pure by the strength of his spirit who sanctifies us in holy living in this life, getting us ready for the life to come. My friends, you are the children of God for Jesus Christ has come to die for you. He was raised from the dead for you. And now he is ascended at the right hand of the father for you, bringing to you all of the righteousness that you need, all of his righteousness by which you are saved Trust in him, my friends for he is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
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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