“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 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, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 1:1-2:2 NIV)
John never forgot. I bet you wouldn’t have either. He was there that night. He could remember the locked doors. The fear. The shame. The doubt. Do you know what I’m talking about? Easter Sunday evening. What we just heard about in our Gospel lesson. John was there, and he never forgot it. Because, suddenly, Jesus appeared. What would he say? What would you have said to people who abandoned you? Denied you? Doubted you? But what did Jesus say? “Peace be with you…. Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see” (Luke 24:36,39). In those words, a message rang loud and clear: “I forgive you. I forgive you!” John never forgot Jesus.
John lived longer than any of Jesus’ other disciples—perhaps as old as 100 years old. By the time he wrote 1 John, he was at least 85 years old. But he hadn’t forgotten that night. This is how he started his message: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” Our senses are powerful, aren’t they? Sounds and smells and feelings can suddenly take us back to a different time. For John, it was to Jesus. “What we saw. What we heard. What we touched.” Jesus!
Don’t you wish you could have been there? Actually, that’s why John was writing this. He wants to take you there. He wants you to have what he had. That closeness with Jesus. “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.” The goal of Christian preaching is for people to have fellowship with Jesus and with each other. Don’t you want that? The goal of God’s Word is to bring us into that room with Jesus and see his face and touch his hands and hear his message: You are forgiven. You are forgiven!
So God had this old man John write books of the Bible. Picture the kindest, lovingest grandpa who wants to tell his grandchildren the most important things in the world. Can you imagine this? He sits them down, turns off the TV, and says, “Before I die, I want you hear this: ‘This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 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, purifies us from all sin.’” This is the message!
There are two paths in life. Not a bunch. Two: Light or darkness. You can walk with God in light and truth, or you can walk in darkness with sin and unbelief. Grandpa John has the boldness to ask us, “Which path are you walking on?” Jesus knows. If we claim to love God and yet hate our neighbor, Jesus says, “Liar!” If we claim to follow Jesus, but we love all sorts of things more than him, Jesus says, “Liar!” But if we walk in the light, “The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.” That’s the gospel message of the Bible: “Jesus has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.”
This is the message! But Grandpa John doesn’t stop there. He gets this serious look on his face. Not angry. Loving concern. He leans in and looks you in the eye and says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Contrary to what you might hear, sin is a big deal. John knows that your friends, maybe even many in your families, are shrugging it off. Telling you to live however you want to live. But John knows that’s a lie. He watched the blood drip from Jesus as he hung on the cross. He touched Jesus’ scars with his own hands. Sin is a big deal. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
So maybe we give a little nervous laugh and say, “Who would claim that? Who would say they haven’t sinned?” I know who: I do. I do, every time I’m so quick to judge others but not myself. I do, every time I think I’m one of the good ones, that I deserve the best from God. I do, every time I get defensive whenever someone suggests I’ve done something wrong. If you point out my sin, I’m going to criticize you, poke fun at you, and deny it completely. Who would be so foolish as to claim to be without sin? I do. And I bet you do too. So John shakes his head.
That’s not going to work. Because do you know what God says? “Liar!” When I hold my head high and pretend to be good, God says, “Liar!” If you think you haven’t sinned, or that your sins aren’t very bad, you’re only deceiving yourself. You’re not fooling God. He knows everything. You’re not deceiving other people either. They see your sins as clear as day. If you claim you haven’t sinned, the only person you’re deceiving is yourself. The most dangerous “fake news” is what we tell ourselves in our own heads. “You’re better than they are.” “You deserve it more than they do.” “You don’t have to follow what that says.” “Just this once won’t hurt anyone.” God says, “Liar.” “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
That’s hard to hear isn’t it? But we need to hear it. Because then a smile comes on John’s face. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” You don’t have to live with guilt and shame. You don’t have to carry your sins around. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us.” God is not like our world. In our world, when you admit that you’re wrong, people eat you alive. With God, when you confess your sins, he forgives you. Why? If God is faithful and just, shouldn’t he punish sin? He did. Remember? “The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.” This is the message! God tells us the truth about us, so that we can confess our sins and find peace and forgiveness in Jesus.
Just like that Easter night. John and his friends were hiding behind locked doors. They were trying the “not confessing your sins” option. It didn’t work. Those locked doors didn’t give them any peace. Hiding never does. Until Jesus came. Then it was all out in the open. They had abandoned Jesus. They had doubted Jesus. And Jesus knew it. So what did he do? He forgave them. John knew firsthand: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The message rang loud and clear: “I forgive you.”
That’s why “if we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.” To deny sin is to deny Jesus. To ignore sin is to ignore Jesus. To call sin a lie is to call Jesus a liar. But to confess our sins is to confess Jesus. Have you noticed how as John writes, there’s this back and forth and back and forth? Sin and forgiveness and sin and forgiveness. Why does John write like that? Because that’s life. That’s what we’re like! Sin and forgiveness and sin and forgiveness over and over again. Which do we need to hear about? Our sin or God’s forgiveness? Both! All the time. Every day. This is what it is to walk with God. Confess. Be forgiven. Repeat.
“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” “My dear children…” This is an old man writing to people he loves. “I write this to you so that you will not sin…” That’s the goal of every Christian, every day. We don’t want to sin, ever! “But if anybody does sin…” That’s the reality of every Christian, every day. I sin. You sin. Every day. “We have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One…” We have an advocate. Jesus intercedes for us. He doesn’t say, “Father, it’s not that bad. It’s not a big deal. Why don’t you let them off the hook?” He says, “Father, I paid for it. I suffered for sin. They are forgiven. My blood purifies them.”
Because “he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Sound familiar? We use those words often in our church service. “God our heavenly Father has had mercy on us and has given his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins…” “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” When God looks at you, he doesn’t say, “Liar!” He says, “Forgiven.” He says what Jesus said to his disciples that Easter night, “Peace be with you.” This is the message: Every day we want to walk in God’s light, but when we sin, we have a Savior—Jesus!
When I became a pastor, I was given a picture of Martin Luther. On one side of the painting is Martin Luther preaching from a pulpit. On the other side are people listening. But there’s something in the middle. Can you guess what it is? Jesus. In the middle is Jesus on the cross. The painter was trying to capture and share an important message. When Martin Luther preached, it wasn’t about Martin Luther. Actually, when Martin Luther preached, people didn’t think about Martin Luther at all. What did they think about? Jesus. Whom did they see? Jesus. Whom did they hear? Jesus. Jesus is the Word of life. He is the Message. It’s all about Jesus.
I pray that’s what I’ve done as your pastor: Let you see and hear and touch Jesus. This is the last sermon that I get to preach here at St. Paul. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve done here. I’m not really sure. It’s been a short time. I don’t really know what I have to show for it. But I pray this is true: I’ve pointed you to Jesus. Because there is one message and one message alone that changes hearts and lives. There is one message and one message alone that is the difference between light and darkness, between life and death, between heaven and hell for you and me. I pray that I’ve preached that message of Jesus into your hearts.
John lived longer than any other disciple, but he still died—1,900 years ago. If you’re basing your life on anyone or anything else, it’s going to die too. But do you know what didn’t die? The message. Know what will never die? Know what will never take a call or leave? This message: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness….” I’m not quite 85, but I did turn 35 this past year. I still want to say to you what John said, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” This is the Message!
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