Pentecost 2 - 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

These days we have been hearing lots about the economy. There has been conversation about the housing market, more recently we have heard plenty in the news about the failure of General Motors, and locally things have been slowing down at Honda. People and businesses and corporations are tightening their belts and looking for ways to weather the economic storm.

In the most uncertain of economic times, Paul's message to us today is a welcome reminder. Paul says that he is of good courage. He is hopeful about the outlook for his life and for ours. When we are uncertain about the size of our paychecks or whether or not we will be receiving one at all, “good courage” is a thing that can be hard to muster up. A little dose of “good courage” would be a welcome thing.

Paul's “good courage” is not simply the power of positive thinking. Sometimes people would have us believe that if we just had a better attitude, if we changed our way of thinking we could change our situation or turn our luck around. All the positive thinking in the world isn't going to sell more automobiles or make your house payment. Those are realities that require some substance. No Paul has something different in mind. Paul is talking about Gospel Courage. Paul is talking about a hope that is founded upon the promise and guarantee of the Gospel as God's promise of salvation to all who believe. According the gospel, regardless of your situation, Paul wants you to know that you too can be of good courage.

Paul tells us we are living in tents. Our lives here in this world is comparable to living in a tent. These days we live in tents for fun. We go for a weekend out into the woods, build a fire, toast some marshmellows, make smores and call it camping. That's not what Paul is talking about. Paul is taking about living permanently in a residence that is temporary, a bit drafty, and entirely undesirable. Even for those of you who enjoy camping, after your weekend of fun is over, you are happy to get back home. It is after all more comfortable and more secure.

Think of it this way: we have all heard ample amounts about the fema trailers sent to provide temporary housing for those displaced by hurricane Katrina. The government sent hundreds and thousands of trailers down to give people a place to stay, a roof over their heads while they were waiting for their homes to be rebuilt.

Now, the people living in FEMA trailers didn't really care to stay there too long. They didn't do a whole lot of landscaping and home improvement projects because the housing arrangement was temporary. It wasn't meant to last. They had the hope of a better home and a better life as they were waiting for their new home to be reconstructed.

That's the point of view that Paul wants you and me to have. That is how Paul envisions that you and I will consider this life. It's like a fema trailer. It's temporary. It's trashy, it's a little run down, it's not very safe or secure. It is undesirable. The good stuff is still to come. God has much better things in store for us.

And that is why Paul says that he is of good courage. He is focused, not on the current situation. Not on the here and now. He is focused on the joy of what will be, on the promise of what is still to come. Paul's hope and joy and courage is based on the promise that God has given that there is a new life and a better life, you might even say a permanent life, that God has in store for the Christian.

That new life is a life given for the sake of Jesus. Remember, as we have said this is a gospel hope and a gospel courage. This is a hope and a courage, an attitude and a perspective that we take on because of the Gospel. Because of what God has promised us in Christ Jesus.

When Katrina ravaged the Gulf coast of the United States, our government recognized the need to care for and provide for the people who were devastated by that storm. Since that event has taken place, most everyone agrees that the governments overall handling of that disaster was poorly orchestrated on all levels. The local government failed, the state government failed. The federal government failed. Yet our earthly authorities despite all their failures recognized that they couldn't simply leave these people on their own without providing some food and shelter and aid. The FEMA trailers were a part of this aid.

Now if these man made governments operated by sinful men can figure out the responsibility to provide for people when a disaster has occurred, how much more then, will our Heavenly Father who is good and merciful and loving provide for people when the bigger disaster of sin has occurred.

Stop and think about the devastation of a hurricane. It's big. It's bad. It's messy and ugly. Now stop and think about the devastation of sin. Stop and think for a moment about the disaster that has come upon the earth because we have disobeyed God. Every evil act. Every act of war and terror. Every hurricane and earthquake and tornado, every act of terrorism and murder every death every sickness has come about because of sin. The devastation we see in the world around us is the aftermath of sin.

God, however, loved us too much to wipe us out and start over. He could have, maybe he even should have. But he did not. Instead he decided to rebuild. Not just the world, but also the people. He decided to accept the responsibility for our disobedience and sin. He decided to claim our guilt as his own and pay the penalty for it. So he did.

Imagine sending one man with a rake a shovel a hammer and some nails to clean up the entire region after a natural disaster has occurred. You might think to be poor planning. You might think that one man to be in over his head. That was God's plan. When God saw the total devestation brought about in the world because of sin, he sent one man to fix the whole thing single handedly. That was a tall order. Too big for your average man. So an average man wouldn't cut it. God needed an above average, an out of the ordinary sort of man. So God sent Jesus – the God/man. No body else could get the job done.

But Jesus did it. If we had an entire lifetime we couldn't reverse the damage that we have done to God's world. Indeed, every new generation has a plan for what's going to save the world. Some think it's technology. Some think it's environmentalism, some think its education, some think its government. They are all dead wrong. Men have tried to fix the world and they just wind up breaking it even more. Only Jesus has ever had a plan that will work. His plan involved his death. On a cross. IN our place. AS the sacrifice for our sin.

When Jesus died on the cross he stepped in to the place where you and I aught to be. He stepped in to take the punishment that we have earned. He stepped in to repair the devastation left behind because of the disaster of human sinfulness. He took it all. Every bit of it. He was like that one guy with the hammer and nails and shovel and rake sent in to do the job all by himself and he got it done. He accomplished it all. We never could. But he did. The job is done. Your sin is forgiven. Washed away. Cleansed. Scrubbed clean.

Sometimes when something is really dirty, when you want to remove a lot of dirt as quickly as possible, sometimes the best thing to do is get out a power washer and let the power of the water get the job done. God has His own power washer – He calls it baptism. In your baptism you were power washed – the sin that clings so closely that nothing else can get it off lets go when God dunks you into the bath of water and His Word. You get so clean that even your future sins, your sins you have still to commit are washed off and you are permanently clean!

This promise is yours now. But there is more to come. You see, in spite of the fact that we have the hope and the guarantee of new life and salvation given to us for the sake of Jesus we still live in the FEMA trailers. Our heavenly mansions are ours, we have the paper work that says we are the owners. No one can take it away from us. But we are still waiting for the full gift to be delivered. We are still living in the shanty town, we are still living in the FEMA village.

And this place stinks. It's dirty. It's run down. Its broken. Its dangerous. There's crime and death and sadness and grief and sickness and disasters and pain. There's all this stuff. Christians know that there is all this bad stuff in the world and that there are lots of times that because of it we suffer. But we don't loose hope. In fact we are of good courage. Because of the gospel – we have gospel courage!

So we are of good courage. We are hopeful. Even when life in the tent seems to be going to wrong direction, even when the stress levels go up, we still have that hope – that gospel hope of a place reserved for us, built especially for us with our own name on it, in heaven. Jesus has cleaned up the mess of this world. He has cleaned up the mess of our lives and we have the guarantee of life forever in heaven.

Amen.

Easter 7

It's graduation season. Over these next few weekends, our local high schools (not to mention our own St Paul's jr high) will be saying goodbye to their graduating classes. The students have completed their obligations, they have done all that needs to be done. And the students are ready to depart; to move on to the next thing and to take their next step.
The students have prepared for their departure. They have prepared personally and academically. They have grown in their personal responsibility on their march toward adulthood. They have grown in the competency and knowledge with the academic subjects: they have met the necessary standards and completed the necessary courses to make them ready to take on the next thing.
As we observe the departure of seniors from their high school class or seventh graders from our own seventh grade class, we also take note of another departure – not the departure of students, but the departure of a teacher. And not just any teacher, the teacher. The one who came to teach and to preach the Word of God as the very Word Made Flesh. Today we observe the departure of Jesus from his disciples. This past Thursday was Ascension Day. The day 40 days after Easter when Jesus was taken up into the heavens and returned to His heavenly Father after he had completed his work on earth.
Just as our high school and jr high students are preparing to depart because they have fulfilled their obligations in school, In our Gospel text today we see Jesus as He is preparing to depart because he in on the verge of fulfilling his obligations. Jesus speaks the words of our text as he was preparing for his death and the culmination of the things he was sent among us to do.
While students prepare for the departure that is graduation with study and with testing and with course work, Jesus prepared for His departure with teaching & preaching, He prepared for his departure with his perfect sacrificial death and resurrection to pay the penalty for the sin of the whole world. And finally, as we see here in our text, Jesus prepares for His departure with prayer. Jesus prays for his disciples. Just as the parents of our graduates are sure to be praying for their children who will be out of the house, away at college or working, and off on their own; Jesus prays for those who he has taught and guarded and kept and who will be out performing the tasks that He has prepared for them to do..
In our text, Jesus prays that God the Father would guard those who had been given to him as his disciples. “I am no longer in the world,” prays Jesus, “but they are in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in Your name that you have given to me that they may be one even as we are one.”
“Guard them. Keep them. Watch over them.” This is Jesus' prayer. Jesus understands, he knows, he foresees the dangers that the disciples will face. He knows that he will be sending them into a world that will not receive them with warmth and welcome but that will hate them, that will seek to silence them and that will seek to intimidate them and force them into submission. Jesus prays that His Heavenly Father would preserve them from the attacks that they are sure to undergo.
As we pray our own prayers, we would do well to take note of Jesus' prayer, to notice the things that he prays for. His prayer demonstrates a much greater faith and wisdom than what ours so often do. More often than not, when we pray, the things that we pray for have to do with the immediate concerns of our bodies. These days and under our current economic climate, there are likely to be lots of prayers that have to do with employment, with finding or keeping or maintaining a well paying job. Because of the constant talk of the economy we are worried about our finances. Or, a recent concern has been the swine flu – perhaps people have prayed that God would keep them healthy and protect them from this virus or from some other type of illness.
God has given to us the gift of our bodies. God is absolutely concerned to provide for the care of our bodies. This includes your health, preserving you from sickness so that you don't get sick in the first place and/or helping you to heal when you find that you are. This also includes your occupation. God knows you need a place to live, a roof over your head, clothes for your body and food to eat and he provides these things for you.
We often become very overly concerned with the pursuit of these things and are tempted to think that they are the most important, the most necessary of the things that God should provide. They are not. They are further down the list. They are, at best, secondary. When Jesus prays his prayer, he doesn't even mention those things. God knows that we need them and He will provide them for us in abundance. Instead Jesus prays for that thing that we most need. Jesus prays that God keep us in the name that he has given to us. That he keep us in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the name that was given to us in our baptism, Jesus prays that God the father would preserve us in the Christian faith.
To be preserved in the Name is the same as to receive the Word and the preaching of Jesus. It is to be a Christian. To be a Christian is to have God's name. It is to have written into our hearts the Word of Christ; that He is our savior, that He is the one who has died for us to save us from sin. That our salvation is caught up in him.
In His prayer Jesus says of the disciples and of us, that he has given to us His Word and that the world has hated us. The world hates those who bear the name of Christ. The world hates Christians.
I recently saw a bumper sticker that read, “I don't have any problem with God, it's his fan club I don't like.” Now, to some extent Christians have made themselves targets of the world's hatred because of their own at times bad behavior and at other times short-sitedness. We need to remember who we are talking to. Christians live in two kingdoms. In the right hand kingdom the Gospel rules and the Word of God holds sway. In the left hand kingdom, that is to say, in the civil realm we are ruled by the law, and thus by reason. At times Christians loose sight of this. While Christians can engage the world in topics of abortion, the definition of marriage and even questions of science we would do well to use God's gift of human reason. We would do well to remember Paul's example who used the scriptures as his authority when talking in the synagogues, but then used secular poets and philosophers as his authority when he spoke in the Areopagus.
That being the case, there is a hatred of Christians and people of faith. There is a cultural push to cast Christians in the light of ignorance and stupidity. There is an intolerance that is unleashed on those who do not hold to atheistic and pseudo-scientific ideals.
Paul talks about a man of lawlessness. The spirit of the Antichrist who will come into the world. Paul tells us that the spirit of lawlessness is already at work in the world. There is a desire among sinful men to be a law unto themselves, to have no rule of law, to be able to wiggle out from under morality if it suits your purposes. We want to make morality situational; you do your best to obey the commandments, but lets face it, there are times when being moral is just impractical and you do what you've got to do. We are all lawless. We all struggle with lawlessness in our own hearts and in our own lives and we all have behaved as if the law did not apply to us.
Jesus was only too well aware of this struggle that we would find ourselves embroiled in, that we would be tempted to see ourselves as above the law, and outside the law. We would be tempted to dismiss the law when it did not fit our needs or when it got in the way of our goals. And so Jesus prayed for his disciples. Jesus prayed for us. “Keep them in the name that you have given to me.”
When we are tempted to see ourselves as above the law, when we are tempted to believe that the law does not apply to us, the danger is that we forget how greatly we need God's forgiveness. We tell ourselves that God's law has not applied to us because of our special circumstances. We justify ourselves in setting aside the truth and therefore we don't need Jesus.
We do need Jesus. We are absolutely sunk without Jesus. Every last one of us is corrupt through to the core, is hell bent on destruction and is convinced that we are not that bad. We need Jesus who teaches us the fullness of God's law. We need Jesus who teaches us the depth of our falleness. We need Jesus who reveals to us the height of God's forgiveness and love. Who while we were yet sinners came to die for us on the cross, to pay for all of sin and to save us from our certain destruction in hell.
Jesus prays for us that we may be one even as He and the Father are one. When we have heard the preaching of Christ, when we have taken into our own hearts the truth of God's Word, it proclaims us to be sinners. What causes division among sinners is pride that points out the sins in others and denies the sin in the self. When we have all seen ourselves as equally sinful we are unified in that we are condemned. We all deserve God's punishment. We all deserve to go to hell. Likewise then are we unified in forgiveness. While we all deserve hell, we have been given heaven. While we have deserved punishment we have been given blessing. While we have deserved destruction we have been given life. We are unified as common recipients of God's grace, his love, his peace, his blessing, his forgiveness, his salvation.
When in faith we see ourselves as bringing nothing to the table and taking away from it every good gift that God has to offer, we are nothing but joy filled. We are unified in the fullness of Joy that God has done with us that very thing that we have not deserved. We are brought together by the satisfaction of salvation. What can we express but joy? What can our hearts express but praise and thanks to a God who has dealt so graciously and generously with us.
Jesus was on his way. His time on earth was nearly done. He knew he was coming to the end. He also knew his disciples and the would-be Christians who would follow them; he knew us. We are foolish. We are sinful. We are prideful. We are easily misled and easily deceived. So he prayed for us. He prayed that we would be preserved, that we would not so easily abandon all the good gifts he had given to us.
Christ has prayed for you. May you be preserved in the blessings of salvation he has won for you.

Easter 6

This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, Anna Carinena, Gone with the Wind, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Pride and Prejudice, and Casablanca. Sleepless in Seatle, When Harry Met Sally, The Notebook, The Bridges of Madison County, The Princess Bride, not to mention a few of the current favorites in the Schlueter household Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid.
What draws these stories all together, the common thread that runs through each one is that each is a love story. A story about the formation and implementation of romantic love, classic stories about endearing and enduring romance between a man and a woman. The stories are often tragic, always heartfelt, and each one seeks to contribute some piece, small as it may be, to the over all discussion and understanding of Love.
Love! What is it?
How do you find it?
What do you do when you are caught up in it?
These are the questions of our day. And as much has been written, as much ink has been spilled and as many stories as have been told, there are always more to tell. Characters are redrawn, plots are reconstructed and tales are re-woven to once again tell the story of love.
These are the question of our day. And increasingly more so. With romance filling the airwaves and painting pictures on our television screens, and streaming on the Internet, with initiatives on ballots for who can and can not love and criticism and accusations of bigotry in print and flowing from new sources, questions of love are ever before us. How to answer them? That is the question.
The answer to the question of love is to examine the topic under the cross. God is love. If you want to know the character of love, if you want to know what it is and how it works and what it does the place to begin is with the Word of God. The place where God has revealed himself to us and the place where God has written a record that answers these questions as we need to know them.
If you want to know love, know God.  because God is love.
“As the Father has loved me”, said Jesus, “so have I love you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you that your joy may be full.”
With so many people looking for love, with so many people wanting to be loved, Jesus here offers to us the key to love and to where it begins – love begins in God. Because God is Love. God the Father who sent to us Jesus, who gave to us his commandment, who offers to us the fullness of the Joy that comes through receiving His love; He is love.
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10 (ESV) That was our text last week. It really couldn't be any more clearly put. Love is what God does to give us Jesus who is the sacrifice for our sin. Last week we talked about propitiation. A word found in the Bible, that we don't really use anywhere else, but that tells us about God's mercy that fulfills his right and righteous judgment by means of His own perfect sacrifice – Jesus on the cross for our sin.
That is so different from how we think about love. It doesn't matter how else you would define it: Passion. Chemistry. Emotion. Feelings. Desire. Sex. Whatever... These things, to find them, you look inside yourself. You look into your heart. Popular ideas about love all have to do with attraction, whether or not someone stimulates you, makes you feel a certain way when you are around them. This is not love. This feeling can be a by-product of love. But it is not love. Love. Real love. True love is a conscious decision, an act of the will, something you do because you can do no other. Last week we also talked about moms. We have all heard the expression, “He has a face only a mother could love”. That's about as close as we can come in a sinful world to understanding what love is. It doesn't matter how badly you disappoint her, you mom still loves you. You're still her precious baby whether or not you deserve to be.
Love is what love does. Love surrenders. Love sacrifices. Love dies. "Greater love has no one than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends." You want to see love. You want to know a love story, you want to see the greatest love story ever told, ever written, ever conceived? It didn't come from a human mind, a human heart. Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story about a young couple who give up their lives for their love. Romeo and Juliet has nothing on this story, on God's story. God's love is far more radical, far more sacrificial, far better, more beautiful. To see and understand God's love, look at the cross. There has never been a greater love, a more perfect love, a purer and yes even more “passion”ate love than the one we see in Jesus on the cross. Jesus who gave all so that you could live. Jesus who made himself the sacrifice, the scape goat, the God in human flesh who came to die for the sins of the world. This is love. Jesus is love.
Love might create feelings. Love might foster emotion. But the stuff you feel in your heart, the butterflies you feel in your stomach – that is not love, not true love, not love that in the end is worth something. Love is sacrifice. Love is dying, laying yourself down for your friends, stepping in to take the punishment that you don't deserve. That is love.
Have you loved?
No. You haven't. I haven't. Not like that. Not like God has loved. Not the way we should love. Or didn't your realize that was the standard.  Jesus said, “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.” We have seen His love; love that is so complete that He literally died for us on the cross, that he suffered unspeakable tortures at the hands of the Roman soldiers but especially at the hands of God.  This is how Jesus has loved you; now, says Jesus, you show that same love to your neighbor. 
We have come nowhere close. Not to that kind of love anyways. The best human love we find example of, the purest love a human heart can muster is a mother's love, but even that is partial and impure.  Mom's, just think about the things that go through your heads when you pick up the same toys and the same dirty clothes from the floor for 87th time in one day.  Are the thoughts in your head thoughts of love, or are they influenced by frustration or even anger? Is your love at times given begrudgingly and unwillingly?
The best love that we can muster, the most complete and consistent love that we produce is the love we have for ourselves. We are always looking to further our own ends, to achieve our own goals, to promote our own agendas. We are always concerned to preserve what we need, what we want, what we think our lives should be.
That's why love in the world is such a mess. Consider divorce. These days it is acceptable, both culturally and legally, for a husband or wife to come home announce to their spouse they have fallen out of love, causally make an appointment with an attorney and dissolve what God has joined together. In our day, marriage means nothing. Love means nothing. Marriage is a small flame that burns for a while, whose flames provide a passing entertainment, but when that flame grows dim, putting it out all together is a quick and easy process.
With the way we treat marriage, with the dishonorable way we conceive of God's greatest gift for human love and relationships, is it a wonder that so many states are considering initiatives to allow marriage between two men or between two women. Is it any wonder that when marriage is nothing more than a party with some gifts and nice vacation afterward that our popular culture has come to understand this as disposable. Of course not. We are sleeping in the bed that we have made with our own poor choices. And since this is the bed we have made, there's no stopping who can get in or out of it.
So how do we stop it? Return to love. Look to your first love. That is to say look to the One who has loved you first, who has loved you first and best. Look to Jesus.
God is love. God has demonstrated love by living that love. He lived that love by living to first to obey and second to die.
Jesus lived to love and he loved to obey.
Jesus tells us that we love God when we obey his commandments. He gives us ten. He sums them up into two and then to one. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love. Obey this command.
Emotion is not love because emotion serves the self. You can fall in and out of love a hundred times a day. Love must be greater than that.
Adultery, be it same sex or opposite, is not love because love is faithfulness, faithless sexuality is self serving. Christian sexuality is never self serving it is God's gift of you to your spouse.
Chemistry is not love because love never fails. Science experiments burn hot and then burn out.
As those redeemed by Christ under the cross, we aught to confess those sins. We aught to acknowledge to God and then to each other that we have not loved. Husbands have not loved their wives. Wives have not loved their husbands. Parents have not loved their children. Children have not loved their parents. Brothers and sisters have not loved one another. We are guilty of self-love. We need to confess that misguided love and instead love each other the way we love ourselves.
And when we have obeyed that commandment, our hearts are ready and prepared. We have seen our fault, we have confessed it and God is ready with his forgiveness. He has chosen us. He has moved us, our heart to this confession. He has turned us outside ourselves to begin learning to love him.
Love is what love does.  Love is what God does.  God gives.  God surrenders.  God sacrifices.  God does this all for you.
Because God has done this you are forgiven. God's love has driven out your sinful love. God's love has replaced your impartial love. If some have a face only a mother could love, we all have a heart that only God could love. He has loved. He has loved you. Go in His peace.

Easter 4

Do you suppose they just didn't know?
Shortly after the Holy Spirit was given on Pentecost, Peter and John went to the temple. While they were there they met a man who had been crippled since his birth. The man was a beggar and he asked the two companions for a few coins so he could buy a meal. “Silver and gold we do not have,” said Peter. “But what I do have I will give you. In the name of Jesus get up and walk.”
The man got up and was leaping up and down in the temple, praising God and attracting a good deal of attention so that Peter and John were compelled to give witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus as the author of life for the forgiveness of sins.
This is the background for our first lesson from Acts. As the narrative begins here in our text, we discover that the rulers of the temple took issue with Peter and John for their preaching. They arrested them, put them in Jail, and tried them for their crime of healing a lame man and preaching the crucifixion of Jesus.
Peter and John were in the temple, the headquarters for the men behind the murder of Jesus. The crucifixion had been only weeks before – still fresh in the minds of everyone in Jerusalem. Wouldn't you think Peter and John would want to lay low for a while? Wouldn't you think they would wait a while longer? Maybe move to a new town? Maybe begin their ministry in quiet places, back alleyways, out in the countryside? Away from the temple. Do you suppose they just were not that smart, that shrewd to be able to discern their very real danger?
That would seem to make sense. Why else would they take such a risk? But these men were no fools. They knew what they were doing. They knew the risk they incurred. Yet they did it anyway. These men understood, they knew, the reality of the Love of Jesus.
This same John who went walking with Peter in the temple, who was arrested by the temple authorities and on trial here in our New Testament Lesson is the very same man who penned the words of our sermon text.
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”
Peter and John knew the love of Jesus. They knew that this love was real love. Not just words, not just noble ideas, not just philosophies and feelings. This was love that compelled Jesus to give up his very self for you and me so that we could have life. This same love compelled Peter and John to heal a man, to reach out to a man who had needs that they were able to meet. This same love compelled Peter and John to preach about Jesus even when it cost them dearly. This love of Jesus also aught to compel us to similar works of sacrifice.
“Little Children,” John writes, “let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth!”
Just as Jesus sacrificed himself for us, just as Peter and John sacrificed themselves for this lame beggar, in the same way, we ought to sacrifice ourselves for each other. Jesus has shown us what it means to love. We ought to show that love to each other – freely, liberally. Without restraint.
Peter and John are a great example. They had received the love of Jesus. Because of Jesus self sacrifice they had the promise of heaven. Therefore they did not hesitate to lay down their lives for this total stranger.
Have we done the same? We would like to tell ourselves that we have. We would like to believe that we do love our neighbors, our Christian brothers and sisters as Jesus has loved us and Peter and John loved this lame beggar. But we have not. We aught to love them with our very selves, we aught to be willing to surrender our health, our well being, for the good of our neighbor. But we don't even want to surrender our stuff!
God has given to us everything that we have. God gives us our bodies; our eyes and ears, a sharp mind, hands and feet to work and he rewards that work with the things we need to care for our bodies. He gives us food and shelter and transportation, clothing and even things for our comfort and pleasure.
It is because of the goodness of God that have not just food on our table, but food that fills our cupboards and food that tastes good so that we enjoy eating it.
It is because of the goodness of God that we have not just a roof over our head, but also walls with windows and insulation and heat and air conditioning and furniture.
It is because of the goodness of God that we have not just clothes to cover our bodies but many changes of clothes of various styles and colors.
It is because of the goodness of God that we have not just a bed to sleep in but also a couch, a table, an entertainment center, china cabinets.
It is because of the goodness of God that we have not just transportation, not just a car to get us from point a to b, but two, three or more cars. And not just beat up clunkers, but nice with climate controlled environments, comfortable seating, little gadgets to play your music tell you the weather forecast and how to get to your destination.
God has given to us, to you so many good things. He has given to you, your self, your body and he has given to you all of these other things for the care and the enjoyment of your body.
While these things are so good, while they are all gifts from God, if God would have us to lay down our self, surely we should also lay down also all these other things. Surely we should also gladly surrender our worldly goods, these extra things that God has given. Yet because of sin, we have not. We have refused. We have instead chosen to hold on to these things, to horde these things, to selfishly and sinfully keep them for ourselves.
Our text says, “If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?” We have the world's goods. There is no questing that. The question is, have we closed our hearts against our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Oh and we have. WE have kept our things for ourselves. We have held on to our cash. We have protected what's ours. WE have refused to give. Refused to share. Refused to help. God has given us greater wealth than the world has ever seen in its entire history. We have nicer things, greater comfort, more amenities and we have seen these thing not as a means to set us free for greater service but as the goal, as an ends to themselves, as something to be held on to and protected and defended. Maybe its when you plan your schedule and won't give up an afternoon to help a brother so you can earn more money for yourself. Maybe its when you place your money in the offering plate on Sunday morning. Maybe its when you haven't stopped to lend a hand to that person in need.
“Little children. Let us not love in words or talk, but in deed and truth.”
Children of God. Know this. As you confess this sin, it has already been forgiven. Jesus has already washed it away. You are already clean. Your sin is already gone. The same God who loved the world so much that he gave his only son has loved you. He has forgiven you for this sin because of the innocent death of Jesus.
As we have been counting costs and tallying up our pennies, he has been piling on the forgiveness and tallying up his grace.
While we have been collecting the World's goods he has been collecting our sin so that he could die for it all.
While we have been turning our hearts away from our neighbors in sin and selfishness he has been opening up his heart to us in love. Your sins have been washed away because Jesus bought and paid for your sin with His own perfect and righteous life and with his own blood.
When Peter and John made their way to the temple on that day they were met with a man who had a great need. He was lame, he could not work and he had to beg. They did not have the worlds goods. They were poor in possessions but what they had to give was by far greater than only a few coins. They had healing for the mans body, and what was even better than strength for his legs was the strength they had for his heart. They offered to the man the forgiveness of sins that comes through the knowledge that Jesus died for me.
Just as your hearts are crippled and lame with sin, the pronouncement of God's forgiveness has healed you. Your hearts are strong.
The beggar used the newly given strength in his legs to leap for joy and for praise to God. May you use the same strength given to your renewed hearts to love and to serve your neighbor.
Amen.

Easter 3 - 1 John 3

See what kind of love the father has given to us so that we are called children of God and that is what we are.

Russian orphanages can be despicable places. They are overcrowded. They are underfunded. And they are understaffed. Unwanted and unloved children are deposited in the orphanages where the attendants offer only the minimum of care. Infants are often diapered and fed twice daily and spend the rest of the day confined to a crib with no one to hold them when they cry, to cuddle them when they are afraid, to nurture them and care for them.

Victoria was born to a Russian alcoholic mother. Her mother could not keep her, did not want her and so gave her up as a ward of the state. The state deposited her in one such orphanage. Victoria's hopes for her life were abysmal. No one to love her, no one to care for her, only her most basic needs were met and once she turned 18 she would be turned out on the street, on her own with a minimum of education, no support, no career, no future and likely to follow in her mother's footsteps.

But Victoria's story was destined to take dramatic change. A young couple came one day to the orphanage where Victoria was housed. The warden at the orphanage directed the hopeful man and wife over to Victoria's crib. They picked her up, they held her, the cuddled her, they brought her into a room where they played with her, put her on their lap, passed her between them with loving embraces. They fell in love with little Victoria. They couldn't leave her in this horrible place. They were not able to take little Victoria home with them at that time. The left the orphanage and returned home to Indiana. But a month or so later they returned to Russia, came back to the orphanage, signed all the necessary papers and claimed little Victoria as their own child. Victoria's life had suddenly changed. She was someone's child, a daughter, beloved, cared for, fed and nourished, loved and nurtured, someone to hold her when she cried, someone to laugh when she smiled, someone to take pride in her, someone to find joy in her.

“My Children, do you see what Love the Father has for you so that we are called children of God. And that is what we are!” says the apostle John about you and me.

For just like little Victoria we were born to be orphans – without a home, without a Father who would love us and care for us and provide for us. Without an inheritance and a future. Without a family. That is not to say that God has not placed us in our earthly homes and communities with relationships and friends and neighbors and relatives and reunions and parties and get-togethers and all of these are good things, things that God has given. Yet they are not enough.

We are sinners. Through and through, right down to the very core, through to the heart. It is not just that we have committed sins. It is not just that every once in a while we have done something wrong, like your own children who disobey you from time to time but still get live in your house and eat at your table. We are out and out slaves to the devil and sin. Spiritual orphans without hope. We are turned in on ourselves so that our self is our “number one”.

But we are loved by God. So much that he calls us His children. Born under sin, born under the law and condemned to His judgment. But he came to us in our sin. He found us in our hopelessness and wretchedness and he adopted us to be his own dear children. So that he could be our own dear Father. So that we could live under him in His eternal household.

Brothers and Sisters in the household of our Heavenly Father, your adoption was not cheap. If you were to travel to Russia or some other country to adopt a child and bring her home as your own it would cost you. You would accumulate thousands of dollars in adoption fees not to mention travel expenses. Adopting a child is costly.

How much more so, then, did your Heavenly Father pay for you. How much more did you cost him? If you were dead in tresspasses and sin. If you were guilty beyond measure, if you were turned away from the one who would love you, if you were guilty of sins against him that demanded punishment, then the only recourse for Him if He were to truly adopt you would be for Him to send His only Son, Jesus, who would be our brother. Jesus came at the command of His Father to suffer your punishment so that you could go free.

Imagine demanding that of one of your children – the youngest gets in trouble and you command the oldest to pay the penalty. How well would that go over. It wouldn't. It wouldn't be fair. Your oldest would argue and complain, Your oldest would resent you for your favoritism. Your oldest would hate the youngest. Dr Phil would think you to be a dysfunctional parent. Yet this is what your spiritual family has done so that you might be included.

While you were yet a sinner, Your Heavenly Father to be sent His only Son to pay the price for your sin so that you could be His child and live in his eternal mansion for all eternity. While you were his enemy. While you hated him and despised him and wanted nothing to do with him he loved you and sent Jesus whom He loved more than anything to be the sacrifice for your sin. Can we even begin to imagine such a love?

And that Jesus would do it. Remember Jesus in the garden on the night he was betrayed, sweating great drops of blood, pleading with His Father that there would be found another way, yet willing to acknowledge the will of His Father. Can you imagine the love of Jesus to share His heavenly inheritance with those who would kill him, with those who hated him and spit upon him and despised him? Can you imagine Jesus loving even you and even me? It is too great, too deep, too far to conceive. Yet this is what our Brother Jesus has done to obey the will of His Father and to make you His brother.

“Do you see what sort of love the Father has given to us so that we might be called children of God and that is what we are.”

Could you imagine if little Victoria were to one day go up to her new mother and father, who had given up so much to have her and who had fallen so deeply in love with her, could you imagine that this little girl, whose life changed so drastically and completely for the good were to say to her new mother and father, “Mom, Dad, it's really nice of you to rescue me from that orphanage where I sat in my own filth and never had enough to eat and where no one cared if I lived or died, but I have decided that your house, your love, your care and provision for me is just not my cup of tea. If you don't mind, I'm gong back to Russia to strap on my dirty diaper and climb back into my old crib in my old crowded, cold institution. I am going to go back to being an orphan.”

That would never happen, you say. Once a child has been saved from such hopelessness she would never go back, never even think of going back. To go back would be senseless. You are right. It would be. So then why do you?

John explains, “You know that Jesus appeared 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 knows him.”

If you have been rescued from your hopeless life of sin, then why do you continue to go back to it? Why do you choose your filth over his purity? Who do you choose your lawlessness over His righteousness? Who do you choose your poverty over his wealth? Why do you choose your loneliness and isolation over his love and nurture? Is it anything other than absurdity? Foolishness? Why do we continue to insist on our own sin?

Brothers and sisters we ought not. We have been rescued from such things. We have been purchased and won from such things. We have been set free from such things. We do not need them. We have no use for them. They pull us away from our Father and they forfeit the inheritance that He has set aside for us. Let us not be so foolish.

A week ago, the epistle from the John the disciple of Jesus reminded us that we have only lied to ourselves and denied God's truth when we claim that we are without sin. But that God in his faithfulness and in His love for us has promised to wash away that sin and cleanse us from our unrighteousness, to cleanse us from our filth through his pronouncement of forgiveness. He promises that each time we confess that we have soiled ourselves he will clean us without exception, without limit. Unconditionally restored as children and heirs in His heavenly House.

My Brothers and My Sisters, the love of God our Father and our brother Jesus is great. We are children of the Father and Jesus is truly our brother. We are called children of God, but that is only the beginning. As wonderful and as great and as unbelievable as that is, the fullness of God's gifts to us has not yet even been revealed. As much as you have already received he has more to give. As much as you already enjoy, you have yet to even tap the bare surface of His blessings. If this is the introduction, if this is the foyer of God's mansion, imagine the treasures that will lie ahead once we have experienced the Resurrection of the Dead, once we are allowed inside the Father's Mansion once and for all with the freedom to run throughout and explore. Untold glories of Heaven await us.

God has set those things aside to be given on the last day. They are yours now, yet incomplete. Let us lay aside those sins that would distract us and entangle us and would move us to surrender our inheritance. And let us live as children of our Father. For that is what we are.

Amen.