“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
I would quite like you to have a go at learning that verse as a memory verse.
I want you, me, us, to go out this morning knowing that we are greatly loved, that God has given us His love. I want you to know that you’re loved.
I’ve been mulling this verse – See what great love the Father has lavished on us – over for a couple of weeks and the more that you think about it – it’s a verse that’s about us understanding God’s great love for you, and His great gift of love to you that we see in Jesus.
The Epistles of John – there are three of them. 1st John starts with this wonderful reminder that John saw what he saw. He was there. An Eyewitness. He’s writing to the next generation – these are the people who cannot poke the scars of Jesus like Thomas did, like maybe John did, but who can gain from the Promise of the Prophecy that Jesus spoke about in our Gospel Reading.
We receive the same promise that the first disciples received by reading our OT, our Gospels, and through Eyewitnesses our NT. So keep at it. Keep reading the Good Book.
And keep receiving the love that God has given us, through the Holy Spirit poured out on us, God opens our minds to read His Scriptures.
I do not find 1st John an easy read because I am expecting to read it in the style of one of st Paul’s letters.
Now, in truth you wont find anything here in this first letter of John that you couldn’t find in, say, Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
Its just that St John does it in a simpler, less linear sort of way. So with 1st John what we have are more like waves rather than like established arguments building up to doctrinal positions.
What we have is John talking about how Jesus is the Light of the World. This is where we start, and then we move from Light to Life, Jesus is the Life of the world, and then from Life to Love – for God so loved the World.
We have these wonderful waves of light and life and love just breaking over us.
And in between we have moments of challenge to get us thinking about What that might look like in practice.
What does it mean to walk in the light of Jesus, What does it mean to live in His Love, what does it mean to be filled with His Life?
*John reminds us of the Maundy Thursday Commandment – Love one another. You can’t say you love God but then hate or ignore our fellow brothers and sisters in the Church family.
John says I’m not going to teach you anything new. I’m just going to repeat the old saying that you’ll remember from Maundy Thursday the one Command that Jesus did give us to Love one another. Love one another.
Helpfully John does go on to say That that is not always easy. So 1st John ch2 tells us about the context of these 3 letters. We find that some have left this congregation, have decided that Jesus isn’t for them, they’ve decided that Jesus isn’t the messiah, isn’t the Son of God. Okay. That happens.
But these people have then gone on to make life difficult for the church family. It is a sort of need that some people sometimes have to justify themselves that they are in the right and so in this case they have decided to be anti-Christians, to cause trouble.
John doesn’t call them anti-christians, he calls them Anti-Christs.
In his second letter he gives a bit more detail about how some of them are trying to cause trouble by returning to the congregation and John says Don’t let them in. In his 3rd letter John even names one of them, Diotrephes, he’s just a trouble maker.
So what does Love one another look like here? If we’re to love the family of the church it means ‘Don’t let Diotrephes in’.
That’s hard. That’s safeguarding when you think about it.
So Love one another
*And then while those waves of life and light and love are washing over us, there’s the challenge of What if we sin, what do we do walk in the dark, what if we walk the path of broken ways?
And this theme comes up again and again. Its almost as if every time we are reminded of God’s love and life and light coming to us that we put up a wall to make it difficult for God, that we forget that love, that we push it away, that we say we’re unworthy, that we don’t confront those aspects of our life that hide from the light.
So for example my son recently got a new car, his first car, everyone remembers their first car, he will remember this car I am quite sure – because about a week after getting it it started going wrong and the garage said ‘Well it needs A B and C doing to it’ and so I said ‘Praise the Lord let’s get it sorted’.
And then a month later it went back into the Garage and few more things were discovered it needed D E and F doing to it. And my son is looking at me and saying ‘When do we stop?’ And I am saying ‘Praise the Lord! Because it means that something wrong has been found and something can be done about it’.
Okay it helps that we really trust the mechanic in this parable. So you can see the point.
But its not easy when God points stuff out to us and says ‘We could really do with changing’ – there’s some darkness here, there’s some Not walking in the light, not living the life that Jesus gives us, blocking out the Love of God, and we can do something about that.
Option one is deny – its not that bad, I’m fine, the car’s fine, we’ll be fine.
Option two is to hide – you know its bad but the cost or the shame and embarrassment – and maybe you’re not ready to let go – there are some hurts that we have received where we’re just not ready to let go –
and what God is saying is – I know a little something of your pain, I just need you to be honest with me, I need you to receive my love, and walk in my light.
So we have these waves of life and light and love washing over us – really if you’re not too precious take a highlighter pen to your bibles and go through 1st John and highlight every mention of light and life and love in it. You’ll see what I mean. God wants you to know you are a child of His, you are loved, His life and light are shining through you and on you.
But we have this defensiveness, what if I sin? This seems to pop up with every wave.
So John gives us waves of forgiveness.
Remember this is all about Jesus.
This is all about remembering that Jesus was is a Real Person really lived in a real place and time and really died a horrible death and He really told us in advance that this would happen and that it would bring about a reconciliation between God and God’s creation, between God and us.
So when the problem of Sin first pops up in chapter 1, John reminds us that
vs7 we are purified by the blood of Jesus,
vs9 that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleans us from all our sin. Ch2v2 Jesus Christ is our atoning sacrifice and not just for you and me but for the world.
So vs 12 our sins have been forgiven on account of His name.
ch3v5 Jesus appeared so that he might take away our sin.
3vs8 the Son of God appeared to destroy the devil’s works.
I’ll stop at ch3 but there’s 2 more chapters to go.
So John is really hoping that you’re be beginning to get the message – that we might know God’s love, that you might walk in His light, that you might know that that you can bring all your sins and brokenness to Him and receive healing, cleansing, purification. John is working hard here to make sure that we get this message of love.
So John’s problem is not about sin. We all sin. It happens. Don’t get so overly righteous about it.
When you sin, bring it to Jesus, bring it to the cross, get yourself purified, get on with walking in the love and light of Christ.
John does have a problem about denying, or hiding your sin, and so the phrase that John uses is Continuing in sin, keeps on sinning, because there we’re not growing, we’re being our own worst enemies, we creating our own setbacks and tripping ourselves up.
So again the solution there, is get yourself immersed in God’s love, – we do that in reading God’s promises in His Scriptures.
Allow God’s light to shine on your life, allow yourself to receive this love, and allow God to cleanse you. And we do that in confession and prayer.
And then live out of God’s love, and walk in His light. And that means showing that love in how we serve and bless other people – that’s PCCs and Rotas, Tech and Churchwatching and all that.
But it starts with receiving God’s love – in worship, word and sacrament, and so knowing in your head and your heart this great love that God has for you.
Learn it as a memory verse: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” AMEN.
photo is of Abigail in Coventry Cathedral