SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:1-7
TEXT: 2Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. THEME: We are children belonging to God’s family. INTRODUCTION In 1973, out on the street corners stood some nomadic looking people announcing the Second Coming of Christ. They called themselves ‘Children of God’. Their pamphlet made parallels between the star that announced Jesus’ birth with the present coming of the comet Kahoutek and the second coming of Christ. These dooms day prophets, predicted an Armageddon, and apocalyptic end to the world. Instilling fear as the motivation for people to change their lives, for all would perish, except for those who joined them as children of God. With this nugget of knowledge about Christ’s Coming, they alone would enjoyed the protection of the Father as his children and survive the destruction of the Earth. They unabashedly asked for donations while they proclaimed God’s wrath, like children, their theology was immature and self-serving. SCRIPTURE The author of 1 John, on the other hand, sees our relationship with God as a parent and child. But with Love so great that God calls us children, drawn into God’s self by love and into a covenantal adoption. God loves us ever more than we could love God. At first, our covenantal responsibility may seem like doing what is right. But our responsibility as children, is to be a kid. We can live in the now and not worry about the consequences. We can explore and discover God in what we do, the people we meet, in nature and in science. We can play, using our imaginations unbounded by decorum, unencumbered by social convention, freed from tradition, status, race, patriotism, privilege, wealth and power. Just play with playmates, trying new things and figuring out what works, discovering what’s out there and who God is. The description of a child gives us huge swatches of grace, in which we adults feel uncomfortable with. Adults want to control everything so we make boundaries, then fiddle with their legality to expand our freedoms. But what if there are no boundaries to loving God and loving our neighbor. In being children there are ‘oops’, ‘whoops’, and ‘aye yah’s’ in the family of God. Things break, feelings get hurt, our selfishness gets in the way. We want what others have, and our time frame centers around ourselves with no thought of what others need, or are doing, or even God’s timing in the matter. (I was at Safeway on Five Dollar Friday, picking up a few things and was ready to leave before the Poke was ready. I told Jann that I would come back for it later, when this guy I knew from before banged into my shopping cart. He rambled on in a senseless conversation, until I tried to politely excuse myself. When I finally did so…the poke was displayed. I recognize this as God’s timing.) We throw tantrums, complain and even cry as part of our growing into a matured child of God. Children grow up to be like their parents. Christians grow up and become images of what God is like. The world gets to see who God is through our relationship with God. Not just by all of the good we do, but also by what we do when we mess up. How we handle our divorce, what we do with the money we get from winning the lottery. Or how we deal with fame, or by not being recognized for our contributions. Our purity is not in sinlessness that we achieve on our own, but through the work of the Holy Spirit in us, through God’s love that forgives, and through a righteousness which God gives to us. We have a humble confidence in being God’s children. A purity in the way that God sees us, in our imperfection, our incompleteness, our potential as beloved children, in God’s image. Love blind to our waywardness, because who we are to God, is more important than the wrong we do. The opposite to being Children of God, is be lawless. Living as if there isn’t a parent God. Living orphaned all on our own, thinking that our actions have no consequences. Living outside of a relationship with God thinking that our actions or attitudes have no effect on God. Jesus shows us that this is not true and how to abide graciously with God. Abiding is not obeying, it has to do with living, dwelling with each other, living in each other’s spaces. This is a recipe for conflict, as with any relationship. Covenant is our goal with God, and is accomplished through wrestling with grace, participating in the work of forgiven and working at our love for each other. Let no one deceive you, our status as children of God is a working relationship of growth, resilient, not threatened by sin, fortified with forgiveness and strengthened by God’s grace. APPLICATION Children make mistakes as part of their growing and learning and still belong to God’s family. How does our sense of belonging help us to grow in God’s family? We live belonging to God’s family, related and heirs to what God has. God’s love for us accepts us as children as our relationship gets lived out. We can live with God as our parent. As children our job is to grow, learn, discover, explore, try and succeed. Success does not come without failure, so it is all right trying and fail because we are not expected to be perfect at everything. The more we try, the more we learn and the more we grow. We are influenced by God’s goodness, by God’s creativity, by God’s attention to detail and by God’s intricate designs found across the universe. As we learn God’s ways, we discover truth. God becomes involved in our lives, our decisions, our ventures, our navigating of relationships and situations. God is our parent listening and answering our prayers. As we learn God’s wisdom, we can see how the commandments have their benefits and God’s desire for what is best for us. As God’s children, we go where God goes. God brings us to the places of injustice. We sit in the court rooms, we stand in the neighborhoods, we sing in the streets. As God’s children we bring God with us where ever we are, in the classroom, in our office, into our families, to Costco. The world does not understand us because they don’t know God. When you follow Jesus, you seem a little strange to the world. Happy but strange. We walk to a different beat; our hearts lead us in different directions. Relationships become more important than amassing treasure. We feel uncomfortable in the Black Friday greed frenzy. I was standing at a Long’s display with a prized product on the end cap, when everyone started grabbing at it, I grabbed one too even though I didn’t need it. When I came to my senses, I put it back. CONCLUSION The comet Kahoutek came and went, but we were still here to face Y2K and other predictions of the end of the world. They revised their prophetic message to say that Jesus was on the tail of the comet and had come as predicted but not in the way “we” think. Then that threat, their predictions, fears and those children of God faded away. But we remain. One of my goals as a parent was to be there for my children when they needed help. That they could come to me, no matter what happened. Last week one of the kids that grew up in our church called me to ask a question. After all of these years. So, like a parent, I listened and gave my best answer. Being God’s child, growing, learning, playing, experimenting, imagining, we can be a little like how God is, and share the wonder of God with others.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Pastor robbSermons Archives
May 2024
|