+Points to ponder

1. Why do you think people object when they hear Jesus say, “I am the Way, The Truth, and The Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)?
2. What do you make of the idea: “Fellowship with God and with His Son involves fellowship with one another...”?
3. Why do you think the world objects to our understanding of Truth and Love?

+Sermon Transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Let us Pray: Risen Christ, Your wounds declare Your love for the world and the wonder of Your risen life: give us compassion and courage to love as You have loved us, to the glory of God the Father Amen.

“In 1 Esdras, one of the apocryphal books dating from between the Old and New Testaments, is the legendary story of a feast of King Darius of Persia. He gathered 127 governors from India to Ethiopia for a grand celebration.

Part of the festivities was a contest among four young wise men who were to describe in one sentence the strongest thing in the world. Each wrote his sentence and submitted it. When they were read, each young man explained why he chose his subject. The first one said, ‘Wine is the strongest.’ The second, the king; the third, women; and the fourth, truth. The fourth wise youth explained his reason like this: ‘Wine, the king, and women are strong, but they are also wicked, and they perish. But truth endures forever. It is the source of justice and order. It is the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty of all ages.’ Christ said, ‘I am The Way, and The Truth, and The Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”

The first of the decisive teachings that result from the resurrection of our Lord and His resurrection life abiding in us, His baptized children, is a recognition that the spirit of love and truth is not of this world or unregenerate humanity, but of God.

The beloved Apostle, John tells us: “Beloved, 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.”

“There are faithful spirits (angels) that serve God and His elect, and there are rebellious spirits (demons) that Satan has disguised in his attempt to nullify the works of the Son of God in the lives of every person.

Satan tried to stop Jesus but could not; now he is after those to whom Jesus would give eternal life. There is no neutral ground, and no mortal human being is independent – one either believes in and belongs to the Spirit of God or one believes in and belongs to Satan and speaks and lives accordingly.”

And so, we ‘test the spirits’ as John has instructed. I know that in today’s world this seems stark, harsh even. But eternal life is at stake. We need to examine words and actions in light of the whole testimony of Scripture. As I often say, “Life is too short for bad theology!”

And John does not leave us hanging. He continues: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and 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.”

“No one can sincerely confess, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit. The triune God Himself provides the confession that this man, Jesus, is God Almighty.”

Martin Luther in his explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed opines:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.

So, John continues: “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore, they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

Beloved, “Whenever a teacher [or preacher] speaks of a ‘Christ’ or a ‘Jesus’ or a ‘God’ who comes to us without human flesh, [or who comes only to bring you worldly prosperity, or some other equally finite cereal box prize], know this: it is a demon speaking through a man, a demon who is seeking to destroy both your faith and your soul everlastingly.”

“On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the Potomac. Ice on the wings prevented the plane from having a successful take-off. Almost all of the passengers perished. The few that survived struggled in the icy river as rescuers tried to reach them.

Five times a helicopter dropped a rope to save Arland D. Williams Jr. Five times Williams passed the rope to other passengers in worse shape than he was. When the rope was extended to Williams the sixth time, he was too weak to take hold and succumbed to the frigid waters. His heroism was not rash. Aware that his own strength was fading, he deliberately handed hope to someone else over the space of several minutes. The bridge near where he died has now been named the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge.

Jesus did not rashly give His life for us either. Being a sacrifice for us was His destiny from eternity past.” [In utter divine love for His creatures, He passes to us through the Apostles’ teaching, the lifeline of His death and resurrection – the lifeline of love, saving us by His sacrificial death on the cross.”]

The second of the decisive teachings that result from the resurrection of our Lord and His resurrection life abiding in us, His baptized children, is that “God is love.”

Thus, what we preach, teach, and confess about God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is paramount. In the second section of our reading, John’s previous interest in confessing Christ turns especially to the need of the beloved to respond in kind love for one another.

He says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

John is giving us encouragement regarding the implications of the Gospel, not just in word (confession and association of the truth, the epistemic and salvific dimensions), but also in deeds (the ethical and relational) due to the love of God being manifest in human history through Christ, and now in those whose lives are intimately entangled in His through Baptism where we were crucified, buried, and risen with Him. John puts it this way: “In 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.”

“Fellowship with God and with His Son involves fellowship with one another... It combines us in God, in the light, the truth, the confession, etc.; it joins us to each other in love; it separates us from the world and from all heretics who talk of fellowship with God and yet are not in the truth but in the darkness, who deny Christ’s deity and His blood, [who reduce Him to a golden piggy bank], etc.”

But why is John so stressing this love? Dr. Schuchard, one of our Seminary’s professors in St. Louis, says in his commentary that “the answer is likely to be, at least in part, that John is attempting to amend the wounds in the church caused by the departure of the [erring] secessionists and ‘to get the remaining faithful Christians to redouble their efforts to create true Christian community.’ They must really pull together.”

So, John does more than offer a mere summons to the endurance of love in the context of the Church. As Dr. Schuchard recapitulates it, “He directs all attention to, he powerfully grounds his summon to love in, love’s sole authentic and empowering wellspring. He points, then, to the source and the reason for our living, for our loving, to the Father, to ‘Eternal Love,’ who shows us His love in the sending and the sacrificing of His sole and beloved Son. John points to the one who is alone powerful to enliven, inform, and empower to newness of life and love in our living and our loving of one another. Not as the world loves, but as we have been loved – that is how we love, in Him who loved us first.” Amen.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

Some sermon study helps from Rev. John J. Bombaro, Ph.D. at 1517.org (1 John 4:1-11)