Sermon: Practicing the True Life in the Midst of the False One

 Practicing the True Life in the Midst of the False One

1 John 3:16-24

       Acts 4:5-12

       Psalm 23

       John 10:11-18

Prayer of Invocation

Our Father, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people; Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer of Illumination

Father, through your Son Jesus, we have passed from death to life. Enable us to practice a life of love that both demonstrates that we belong to You, and that also destroys the works of the devil. In the name of Jesus. 

Proclamation

Back in the day, just after they transitioned from leather to plastic helmets, I played football at San Jose St. (And yes, the older I get, the better I was!) My first two years, we ran a unique defense (The Buddy Ryan 46) that was hard to learn. I played the most difficult position on the defense, Zip. In order to play the position well, you had to “learn your keys,” and you had to learn how to react to the keys–your reaction had to become second nature (in which you no longer had to think about it). 

     I spent the first two years of my career learning the keys for Zip. Through repetition, it finally became second nature, a part of me. Unfortunately, just as Zip became second nature to me, my head coach got fired, and a new head coach came in. He mandated a new kind of defense. I had to start all over again. Spring Ball came, and with Spring came a new way of learning how to play defense. Not only did I have to unlearn what was second nature to me, I also had to practice enough that my new keys became second nature. At times, I would resort back to my old keys—and wap!, I would read the wrong key, and be reminded that we lived in a new era (sometimes learning the hard way as I was looking at stars through my ear hole!). 

We are in the fourth week of Easter. And the texts that we have been reading are reminding us that we live in a new era, that there is a new way of doing things because we have a new king who has delivered us from our slavery and empowered us to live the true life. In this season of Easter, each year we have a kind of Spring Ball,  if you will,  where we focus on practicing a new way of life enabled by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We remind ourselves to practice the resurrection, which reminds us we have a newly appointed king who has a new way of living for us. 

We’ve been looking at 1 John during this year's “Spring Ball”. 1 John is harder to understand than it first appears. For one, John does not argue in a linear fashion like Paul does. Instead he chooses a few themes, and intermingles them over and over again, often through different angles—a rhetorical style called “amplification”. So when we read 1 John, it isn’t like reading Paul, who usually develops a linear argument that moves from a to b to c, and so forth. John starts with a, goes to b, then back to a, then to c, then back b and a, then c from a different angle, which then reminds him of b from a different angle, etc. In some ways, 1 John is closer to reading poetry. 

Anyway, to make sense of 1 John, it helps to see the passage we are looking at this morning  from the panoramic perspective from which John is writing. For John, there are two eras or modes of life, or realms:  you either live in the realm of death, or in the realm of life. Those who live in the realm of death, unknowingly  live under the rule (influence, power) of the devil. He calls this rule and realm “the world”. This realm, the world,  is animated by pride and lust (1 John 2:16). In other words, for John, the default life we are born into, the life that  we first learn how to be human in, is a life that is animated and oriented by selfish ambition, taking and keeping, competition, and hating for the sake of self-preservation. John declares that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Those who live under the power of the evil one practice sin (1 John 3:6-8) such that it has become second nature. 

           But the key insight that John provides for us is this: the world, he says,  is passing away (1 John 2:17). This world that is animated by the evil one is on its way out. Why? Because Jesus has come “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:9)--and all of the corruptive and disruptive habits that people have learned as a result of his works. Jesus does this through koinonia, partnership or participation,   by enabling people to share in his life, which gives them access to the eternal life of God (1 John 1:1-3), the eternal life of love. 

        The main point of John’s letter is this: YOU HAVE PASSED OUT OF DEATH TO LIFE when you aligned yourself to Jesus (1 John 3:14). There is a new coach, if you will, and a new way of doing things, and because you are a part of that new way, because you belong to the one who has destroyed the work of the evil one, you need to learn a new way of life. To practice resurrection is to live into this new realm of life while still living in the old realm: living the true life in the midst of the false life. And as we love, we take part in destroying the works of the devil.

        Jesus is the life of God, God’s life of love lived out in this false life. What does it look like to live the true life in the false life? Jesus! We look to Jesus to learn how to live this true life in the midst of the false one. Instead of lust and pride, we pratice the life of love that Jessu showed us, who  “lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:15, 17). To live this way, however, is to be hated by the world (that is, the realm that lies under the power of the evil one). But this one who laid down his life for his sheep, was raised from the dead—death was defeated, and Jesus was vindicated and declared by the Father to be the cornerstone upon which a new life was to be built  (Acts 4:10-11). This is the claim of the earliest sermons in Acts: (a) Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God: trust in him! And (b) we have to reorient ourselves to a new way of life!  And what is the chief characteristic of this new life? What is the sign that we have passed from death to life? What is the evidence that we no longer live under the power of the evil one? What is the sign that we have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ? Well, there are a few that John highlights in this passage: 

1. You may find yourself being rejected like Jesus was. If you have passed from death to life, then “Do not be surprised that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13). Your way of thinking and being, what you value and pursue will not always align with that which is celebrated in the world. 

2. The work of the Spirit in our lives, who both condemns our hearts when we have sinned (1 John 3:19-20), and enables us to confess our sins to God and live a life pleasing to God, giving us confidence before God (1 John 3:21-22). 

3. The work of the Spirit in our lives leads to the third sign as well: that we keep the commandments of Jesus (1 John 3:23; 2:3-6). 

4. But the ultimate sign is two-fold: that we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that in so doing, we lay down our lives in  love for one another as Jesus did. (1 John 3:23-24; 1 John 3:14-16; 4:7-17). 

        So this is the point John emphasizes over and over again through “amplification”: you have passed from death to life; you live the true life within the false one; you have been joined to the eternal life of love through Jesus; so start practicing that life now. In short, you are becoming what you worship. If you are truly worshiping the God whose life is eternal love, you will become more loving. It is for this reason that John concludes his letter with a contrast between Jesus and idolatry :  20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

        But what happens when we continue to live the false life instead of the true life we have been called to? What happens when our lives are not characterized by love? John amplifies this theme, starting in 1 John 1:9-2:2; but further develops  the idea in 1 John 3:19-20. When the Spirit enables us to see how we are not loving, we have the means of repairing that, by confessing and reconnecting to God’s life, who is greater than our own. 

        We practice this each week! And this is why confession is so important to living the true life within the false one. Part of learning to live this new life is learning how to hear the Spirit indicating to us when we are not loving one another; when the Spirit condemns us for not laying down our lives for others as Jesus did. Rather than hide, rather than shrink in shame, the resurrection invites us to confess, to be cleansed, to be reconnected to God, and to then go, and practice, loving our brothers and sisters.  

Eucharist

The Eucharist reminds us that, like Israel, the Passover Lamb of Jesus has liberated us from slavery, to our old way of life; we have been set free to love like God loves. And the resurrection reminds us that Jesus is now at the right hand of God, serving as our priest and advocate, so that when we live the false life after having been liberated, we can be cleansed and reconnected to the life of God. The Good Shepherd, Jesus, having laid down his life for us, now lives as our priest who intercedes for us before the Father, making a way for us to live this new life, to practice this new life in the midst of the false one. 

Benediction

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.