Lord God, you bring us into the light, not to shame us, not to spend the time trying to focus on the flaws,
but rather by bringing us into your presence so you love us.
Lord God, as we are there, as we are in your presence, we thank you that you change us
and that you shape us into the people you have called us to be.
In Jesus Christ. Amen.
Howdy. Well, everything has changed.
Everything changes because Jesus has risen from the dead.
And yet, sometimes we don't realize that we're acting as if we are still living in a pre-Easter world.
We oftentimes are acting like Thomas before he realized his Messiah had risen.
We are oftentimes trying to figure out what life is like outside of a risen Jesus.
See, we miss the fact that Jesus is not just a teacher or a great guy
or the one who did some amazing things, you know, before that whole crucifixion thing.
But rather is that we realize that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has conquered death and the grave
and has brought us new life that will be fulfilled when he returns again with power and glory.
He is the one who has brought his disciples to touch and to see that he has risen.
But you see, it can be so difficult to see things differently, especially people.
Some weeks ago, I went to a camper union and when I was there,
I ended up walking in at the same time as one of my childhood Sunday school teachers.
Her full name is Isla Dale Bailey, but I first knew her as a child as Ms. Isla Dale.
So what does a grown man in his 40s say when he sees his childhood teacher?
Hello, Ms. Isla Dale. It does not matter how old you get.
There are some people who always have the same name.
Ms. Isla Dale, Ms. Virginia, Mr. Clooney. I don't know why there was a difference there.
But my confirmation pastor, he has not become Larry just because I became a pastor myself.
He is and always will be Rev Ke.
And even when I tried saying Larry one time, it just felt weird coming out of my mouth.
I'm like, we're not going to do this.
But you see, mindsets are also difficult to overcome when we are looking at life and legacy
and how we move forward as followers of Christ.
See, while the old life has been left behind, we can still define ourselves by the former hurts and heartaches.
No matter where we're going, we can still oftentimes look back and end up defining ourselves from that past.
We may struggle to see ourselves as something other than the stupid kid with no Riz and no self-respect.
Yes, I said Riz, you're welcome.
We may remember our low points in life and career and be unable to see work as anything other than a desperate struggle for survival.
We may be the divorcee who never remarried and still feels defined by the loss.
But then someone walks in who changes everything, a friend who thinks you're cool enough to invite to a party and doesn't regret it later.
A workplace or a church that is willing to give you a second chance.
A love interest who looks you in the eye and doesn't flinch.
And here is Jesus, body and soul, showing you everything is different now.
No condemnation for the past sins that put him on the cross, even as he has completely overcome it.
The desire to welcome you into his family here and now, even when you still struggle with the past hurts.
The love that comes from the God man who has conquered death and still sees you as worth his time, everything has changed.
So then, why do we still define ourselves by the brokenness, the hurt, the loss?
Why do we still define ourselves by the way that others around us may define us?
Why do we want to prove something to anybody else who is not the final word, who doesn't have anything to offer us, who will walk away as soon as we truly struggle?
Why do we feel pained over those who barely look us in the eye and lose sight of those who actually love and respect us?
Including, especially the one who has given us everything at his own expense.
John says in verse 5, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
And yet, this is frightening. We are so often afraid of this.
We are afraid. God is light and we're in the light and we're afraid that everything is going to be seen.
It's like performing on stage, a song in Spanish, when you barely speak Spanish, and then the music that you were hiding behind cuts out all of a sudden.
And that stage is completely wide open, with nowhere to hide, and your teacher refuses to let you get off the stage because she is determined for your class to finish the assignment.
No, I have no idea what that is like for myself. And in some ways, it is like what we end up seeing in the next verse.
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
You see, if I had been able to hide in the curtains, or let the music mask whether I did or did not know the words, or even just avoided the stage altogether,
what would that have said about my teacher?
It would have been making her into a liar, or a failure, that she had said her class was going to sing this song, and yet we wanted to disappear, or just avoid singing altogether.
But isn't this what we do with God, in regard to following him?
God said, I want this person, so I'm going to do everything needed to rescue them, and make them part of my family.
And then what do we do?
We try desperately to act like everyone else, and try not to be noticed, except maybe as someone making fun of the people who are up on the stage.
How often are we so glad to say that Jesus gave his life for us, and then came back to life by conquering the grave, only to have no interest in doing anything other than trying our best to act just like the world around us.
But the darkness feels comfortable to us.
The darkness seems to embrace our old selves.
And if we can be embraced without having to change, or grow, or question anything about ourselves, wouldn't that be great?
Wouldn't it be great if we could just say, I can relax, and I can just assume that our current way of doing things is good enough?
Wouldn't it be great not to have to worry about changing?
But the darkness didn't give us new life.
The darkness assumes the worst about us.
The darkness assumes that we are terrible enough that we need to be hidden in the darkness.
The darkness doesn't treat us as children to lift up, and to give in inheritance.
Instead, the darkness makes us feel okay, so that we can never rise above it, and show what darkness really is.
It can be so much easier to dwell in the darkness.
Darkness is something that we understand, something that we can withstand.
Rather than looking at things, head on to see how we might change, actually looking to say, oh, this is something I need to deal with,
it can be easier to dwell in the darkness, and just assume that life is the way it is, and will never change, since we can't see anything outside of it.
One of my dad's favorite jokes is one about the man who keeps hitting his thumb with a hammer.
Someone comes up and asks, why are you hitting your thumb with a hammer?
And the first man says, because it feels good when I stop.
Don't laugh at that. It wasn't funny when he told it. I promise.
But you see, it can be easier to assume that the darkness is better.
It can be easier to assume that looking at inappropriate pictures, it must be okay, rather than asking whether we have a problem that we need to deal with.
It can be easier to change our perspectives on whether our business dealings are ethical, rather than holding to what is clearly right, but may cost us a few dollars more.
It can be easier to laugh about what is falling apart in the world, than to realize that we could potentially make a difference in it, if we stop assuming it's hopeless.
Darkness likes to hold us down, but why do we keep allowing it to do so?
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
The thing is that we are not in this alone.
And that's what the darkness does not want us to realize. The darkness does not want us to realize that walking in fellowship, it brings us out of darkness and brings us into the light.
We have one another, not just supporting us, saying, you're okay, but also showing us that they're in the same flawed boat that we're in.
And instead of focusing on the flaws and the faults that we see in ourselves, we're loved and we're forgiven by God.
How often, though, how often do people resent us when we're no longer bound by darkness?
When we find hope and dignity and self-respect, when our hearts are open to what God is doing, how often do those around us who are still in darkness find ways to ridicule and to mock and to pull us back down?
But you see, this light is meant to shine on everything about us, not in order to bring us shame, but rather so that we can see that nothing can possibly take us away from the love of God,
or undermine what the blood of Jesus has done in cleansing us from our sins as he draws us in fellowship as a family of light.
That light is meant to point us in the direction God has called us.
But you see, if we say we have no sin, then we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
But if we confess our sins, then God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say we have not sinned, then we call him a liar and his word is not in us, which, by the way, Ms. Isla Dale made me memorize when I was a kid.
It's amazing what still sticks with you.
Believing we have to have it all figured out is not how this works.
And in fact, believing that we have it all figured out just makes it worse.
Because it's as if somehow God allowed his son to die for no reason.
Ignoring or denying our sinfulness, it just allows us to wallow in that darkness instead of dealing with it.
We oftentimes, we don't want to change because we don't see it as something we believe that we could keep up with.
If I actually change this, yeah, that might get tiring.
Maybe we're wishing we could just keep on the path that we're on because it's comfortable and sometimes, well, it feels like it's kind of fun.
And yet confessing is not meant to claim that we're never going to stumble or make mistakes ever again.
Rather, confessing to God is saying, I know that I've stumbled, but together we're going to begin the work of becoming more than who we have been.
So then how do we start wanting to change?
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ the righteous.
He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Don't you wish that when they had translated from the original Greek, they would have put it into words in English that are a little bit easier to work?
Propitiation?
I mean, we stumble even just on saying the word, but propitiation, it's meaning to substitute in someone's place to take care of what was needed for them.
There was a story about a judge who was in his courtroom and he sees a young lady that comes into the courtroom and he asks her,
you have been found to have been driving over the speed limit. How do you plead?
She looks up and she says, I plead guilty.
And he says, all right, guilty. You owe $200.
I know, right?
I wish it were.
But takes off his robes, walks down and pulls $200 out of his wallet to pay for the young lady's ticket.
This one person in the courtroom is looking over like, what is happening right now?
And the person next to him says, that's his daughter.
And isn't that really what we end up seeing in the propitiation for us?
But you see, what would happen if he pays for her and then she just walks off and says, I don't care.
And I'm going to go right back to speeding again.
What does that do to their bond, to that connection between them?
You see, this is why we want to become more of the people that God has called us to be because of the love that we have for him because of his loving us first.
He is the one who has done everything that has needed to form that connection.
Why wouldn't we want to do everything we can to live out of that hope?
And it says, and by this we know that we have come to know him.
If we keep his commandments, whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments as a liar and the truth is not in him.
But whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected.
By this we may know that we are in him.
But whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Because what is this great commandment?
Love God and to love your neighbor.
Do we truly know God?
See, knowing God means following him.
The ones that we truly know are the ones that we truly follow.
And that is something that we are going to be working on a lot more here at Christ's Memorial.
Is to be asking these questions of how it is that we continue to know God, to know one another, and to share that with the world around us.
Is to be able to find ways to be discipled.
To be able to continue in that connection with God.
The more that we know God, the more that we connect with him, the more that his light is going to be changing our lives.
But then also to care for one another.
Because how are we going to continue to encourage each other to stay in the light when we don't even know what's happening in each other's lives?
If we can't even care enough to pay attention and to see what it is that they're going through, then how can we show them how God has loved them through it?
But finally, is to reach out into the world around us.
Is to be able to say, the world around us needs to know that love as well.
So how will the world around us know the light of Christ?
If we haven't gone out there to share it with them.
You see, it says in here that God's love is perfected.
God's love was accomplished and finished on the cross.
But without us growing in that light, without us growing in that life, it is not perfected.
There is more to do.
And that's the thing about abiding in our Savior.
Is that through that light, is that not only do we connect with Him, and we share that with one another.
But He doesn't want us to go back out in the world just to allow their darkness to overcome us.
He wants us to bring that light out to them.
I don't know that everybody here knows Jesus for sure.
If you have not come to know the Savior, please take some time to be able to say,
God, I know that I am a sinner.
I know that I have failed in so many ways.
I know that you have given your son to die for me.
And I thank you that that life is mine.
And if you do know this Savior, then don't you want to be closer to Him and everything that that means.
Please let us know how much more we can help you to grow in that light and in that life.
And let us walk in the light of Christ because He has given us His life.
And that life is the only thing that truly changes us and brings us true hope and joy.
Thanks be to God.