April 19, 2015
Easter 3
The Rev. Kim Gilliland
SCRIPTURE:
Acts 3:12-20
1 John 3:1-10
Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
1 John 3:1-10 (NIV)
PURIFIED BY CHRIST
CHILDREN OF GOD
The passage that I am going to preach from today is one that you will seldom ever
heard preached. There’s a reason for that. It’s because it’s a tough passage. It’s tough
because it says things that we don’t want to hear and it says things that on the surface
seem to contradict some of the other things that the Bible teaches us.
So why am I going to do this? Because it’s important. Just because a passage is
difficult, that does not mean we should avoid it. In fact, some of the most important
passages are the ones that make us squirm just a little because they force us out of our
comfort zones. So this morning, I hope that we all get a bit squirmish. If this passage
makes you uncomfortable then just know that you are not alone. It made me
uncomfortable too.
So what’s this passage all about? It’s about who we are in Christ and how we are
called to live for him. John stated that very clearly in 1 John 3:10 (NIV) when he wrote,
“This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are.
Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not
love his brother.” This passage is a contrast. It compares the actions of the children of
God and the children of the devil. That’s what this passage is about. It’s purpose is to
help people separate the believers from the non-believers. Who is in Christ and who is
not in Christ?
What it says to us is actually quite surprising. If I were to ask you how you could
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identify the believers from the non-believers what would you say? You’d probably say
that the separation is based on what they believe. If someone has accepted Christ as their
Saviour, they are a child of God. If they haven’t then they aren’t a child of God.
I’d agree with that. What people believe is important. But there’s one problem.
How do we know they’re telling the truth? You don’t. Someone might say they have
accepted Christ but you can’t be sure of that. You can’t look into someone’s heart. You
can hear what they say but you can’t see into the depth of their soul. Only God can do
that. Only God is capable of knowing the depth of someone’s relationship with him.
But that’s not the issue that John was addressing. He was not asking how God
knows who his children are. We can leave that up to God. In verse 10 it says, “This is
how we know who the children of God are...” John is telling us how we can identify the
true believers from the wannabes. How do we do that? Not based on what they say they
believe but, rather, based on what they do. We are called to base our assessments on
people’s actions, on their deeds. There’s a simple reason for that. It’s because that’s all
we can see. God can see beneath the surface into a person’s heart and soul. We can’t. All
we can see is the outside and so we have to base our assessments on that alone.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER TH AN WORDS
Actions. They speak louder than words. We all know that. What people say is
important but their words have to be backed up by actions. Don’t just talk the talk; walk
the walk. They have to go hand in hand. When people don’t walk the talk, do you know
what they are called? They’re called hypocrites. People who say one thing and do another
are hypocrites.
Now to be honest, on one level, all of us are hypocrites because all of us
sometimes do things that are inconsistent with what we say we believe. All of us make
mistakes. All of us have had those times when we reflected on something that we did and
realized that it was totally at odds with our sense of right and wrong. Maybe you were
angry. Maybe you were afraid. Maybe you were confused. But for whatever reason,
we’ve all been there and we’ve all done that.
Remember Peter on the night when Jesus was arrested. In Matthew 26:31, Jesus
told the disciples that they would fall away from him. But Peter said that would never
happen. In Matthew 26:33 (NIV) he said, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I
never will.” I can just imagine Jesus looking at Peter and saying, “If only you knew what
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I know Peter.” But then to put added emphasis on his commitment to Christ, Peter said
this in Matthew 26:35 (NIV), “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”
Peter was pretty clear with his words, was he not? “Even if I have to die for you, I will
never deny you! That’s how far I am willing to go for you Lord. I will pay the ultimate
sacrifice to show my love for you.” Strong words. But most of us know what happened.
Just a few hours later, Peter did exactly that which he said he would never do. In
Matthew 26:74-75 (NIV) it says, “Then [Peter] began to call down curses on himself and
he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man!’ Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter
remembered the word Jesus had spoken: ‘Before the rooster crows you will disown me
three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.”
Poor Peter. He could not walk the talk. In the end, after all of his bravado, he
denied Jesus. Which one of us hasn’t been in Peter’s shoes? You know the right answer
in almost every situation. You know what you should do but you just can’t find the
courage and strength to actually follow through and do it. Anger, fear, confusion, for
whatever reason, and there are many reasons, we’ve all been in Peter’s shoes and we
have all failed our Lord and Saviour. We have all failed to walk the talk.
And that’s why actions are so important. I’ve heard it said that if you want to know
a person’s character, don’t look at what they believe or think or feel. Look at what they
do. that will tell you what you need to know about that person.
And here’s something else that needs to be said. Don’t even look at what people
intend. The Bible never talks about our intentions. It only talks about our actions. Good
intentions count for nothing if the actions are wrong. The old saying isn’t too far off: the
road to hell is often paved with good intentions. There is a story way back in Genesis
when Joseph rose to be second in command of Egypt. He saved the nation in a time of
famine and he saved many of the neighbouring nations as well. Why was he in Egypt in
the first place? He was there because his brothers sold him into slavery because he was a
snotty nosed, spoiled brat of a little brother and they were sick and tired of putting up
with him. So they tossed him into a pit and sold him to a passing caravan. Then they told
their father that he had been killed by a wild animal. That was the last they ever expected
to see of him.
Years later, his brothers went to Egypt to buy food and eventually Joseph revealed
himself to them. Understandably they were afraid that he would take out his revenge on
them. But listen to what Joseph said to them in Genesis 50:20 (NIV): “You intended to
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harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving
of many lives.” In a strange kind of way, while their intentions were completely wrong,
their actions were totally right because they were doing exactly what God wanted them to
do. And nowhere in the Bible are they ever condemned for what they did even though
their intentions were wrong. Having said that, I am not advocating that you go from here
and deal with a sibling who bugs you by selling them off to a passing caravan. But it does
make a good point. What we intend, right or wrong, is not very important in the Bible.
The important thing is what we actually do. Is it what God wants you to do or isn’t it?
That’s the final and ultimate question. Are intentions important? Yes they are but they are
not nearly as important as actions.
So, back to the original point. How can you tell the difference between a child of
God and a child of the devil? You can tell by their actions. You can tell by what they do.
That’s the dividing line.
IS SINLESSNESS POSSIBLE?
That is completely consistent with what Jesus said in Matthew 7 when he was
talking about false and true prophets. In Matthew 7:20 (CEV) he said, “You can tell who
the false prophets are by their deeds.” If you want to know the difference between false
prophets and true prophets, you need to look at their actions. He also put it in a symbolic
way when he said in Matthew 7:18 (CEV) that, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a
bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”
So here’s a question. What kind of fruit are you bearing? Are your words
consistent with your actions? Are you walking the walk or just talking the talk? What
would you say? That’s an important question because it says a lot about your walk with
God, if it is what it should be or do you need to work at it a bit more.
The problem is that none of us is perfect. All of us make mistakes. And I think we
would agree that all of us sin. But now comes the really tricky part of this passage
because in 1 John 3:6 (NIV) it says, “No one who lives in [Christ] keeps on sinning. No
one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” What do we do with that?
Listen carefully to what it says. It says that if we keep on sinning, then we are not living
in Christ, that we neither see him or know him. Let that sink in for a few seconds.
Now do you understand why you don’t often hear this passage preached? Do you
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see why it is so difficult? We know that we all sin but this passage says that if we are
really in Christ, then we will not sin. It says that anyone who continues to sin really
hasn’t seen Christ and really doesn’t know him. Gazooks! What do we do with that?
John Wesley was one of the key evangelists of the Great Awakening that swept
through England the North America in the 18th century. He was an Anglican priest who
eventually felt a warm stirring in his heart. That stirring led to a ministry in which many
tens of thousands of people came to Christ and the faith of England was renewed. John
Wesley also began the Methodist movement of which this Church is a part. When this
building was completed in 1914, it was the Methodist Church in Cottam. Only in 1925
when the Methodists joined wit the Presbyterians and Congregationalists did it become a
United Church. But our Methodist roots still runs deep.
John Wesley spent much of his life struggling with this question. At one point in
his ministry he believed that he could become sinless. It’s called the doctrine of Christian
perfectionism although it’s not something that we talk about much any more. In Wesley’s
day it was a hot topic. Over forty or so years Wesley aimed at becoming perfectly sinless.
But his attempts caused him to despair because as hard as he tried to be perfect, he
realized that he just couldn’t do it.
As he aged and approached the end of his life, he finally understood and accepted
that he would never achieve that which he so much wanted. He also realized that he was
wrong in his previous thinking. Rather than thinking that perfection was an end state that
could be achieve in this life, Wesley came to realize that perfection was a journey to be
followed. Sinlessness was not about become perfect but rather it was about being on the
road to perfection.
That, in fact, is a far better rendering of the passage from 1 John than we have in
the New International Version of the Bible that I read from this morning. I want to read
you another rendering of 1 John 3:6 from a translation called The Message. Listen to
what it says: “No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin. None of those
who do practice sin have taken a good look at Christ. They’ve got him all backwards.”
Isn’t that interesting? No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin. This is a
far better rendering that the NIV which says: “No one who lives in him keeps on
sinning.”
If you were to go back to the original Greek, you would discover that the Message
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portrays a much more accurate understanding of the true meaning of the passage. That’s
interesting because the Message isn’t really a translation at all. It’s paraphrase. The
difference between a translation and a paraphrase is that a translation takes the words
from the original language and seeks to translate them as much as possible word for word
into English. A paraphrase doesn’t do that. A paraphrase seeks to relay the meaning of
the text even if the Greek words don’t match up exactly to the English ones.
Sometimes a direct translation serves very well but sometimes, like in this passage,
the paraphrase can actually provide a more clear meaning. That’s because the meaning of
individual words may not always translate well into English but the concepts can almost
always be made clear.
When John wrote that a person who lives in Christ would no longer keep sinning,
he was not saying that a person would never sin. The tense of the Greek verb conveys
more a sense of continuing action, that a person would not willfully keep doing the same
things wrong over and over and over again. That’s what the Message indicates when it
says that, “No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin.” There’s difference
between committing a sin and making it a practice to commit sin. Anyone can make a
mistake. Everyone has made mistakes. All have fallen short of the glory of God both
before coming to Christ and afterwards. But as children of God we are called to renounce
the habit of sin and to seek to live more closely to God’s will.
That’s the key feature of what John was trying to say. As children of God, we
cannot keep lying. We cannot continue to hold grudges or abuse the rights of people. As
children of God, we cannot continue to be unfaithful to our spouses. We cannot maintain
addictive behaviors that may be ruining our families. We cannot continue to use profanity
and take the Lord’s name in vain. Do these things happen among the children of God?
Absolutely. But true children of God will recognize these sins for what they are and seek
to break the sinful habit and begin to act the way that God wants them to act.
This is the transformative nature of the cross. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in
our lives. Day by day, week by week, year by year we seek to live more faithfully, more
righteously, more purely in Christ. And let’s be clear about something. It’s not something
that we do on our own. We can’t change ourselves. All we can do is open our hearts to
Christ. The transformation of our lives is not something that we do. It is a work of grace
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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It is the Spirit that puts our feet on the right path. It is the Spirit that encourages us
to walk a straight line. It is Spirit that shows us where we have fallen short. It is the Spirit
that picks us up, dusts us off and enables us to try again.
YOUR LIFE AS AN ADVERTISEMENT
The final question comes down to this: What are the implications for us? Why is it
so important for us to act faithfully and righteously? It’s important because people are
watching. There is a hunger in our world for a authentic display of spirituality. People are
looking for something to believe in. And one of the places they look is toward us. John
was quite right; if you want to know if people truly are children of God, all you need to
do is look at the way they lives their lives. Let’s be clear about something. People look at
us to see if Christianity is worth considering. Each of us is a living advertisement of what
it means to be a child of God. If you live your life faithfully, you may plants seeds for
others to come to Christ. But if you live like a hypocrite, saying one thing and doing
another, you will turn off many, many people who may never again seek Christ in their
lives. That is why it is so important to live well and act faithfully.
Your life may be the only thing that God has to touch the life of another person.
You may be the only advertisement for Christ that someone will ever see. What kind of
an advertisement are you? Are you a good one or a bad one? Are you faithful and true?
Do you love others and seek their good? Do you forgive those who wrong you and try to
be reconciled with those whom you have wronged? What kind of fruit does the tree of
your life bear. Pray that it is good fruit and pray that the Holy Spirit will use you to bring
others to Christ.
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PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
O God, you walk beside us, nurturing and teaching us from the beginning to the
end. You are the Alpha and the Omega. We celebrate the life that you have given to us.
Holy One, in all that we do, every word, every thought, every decision, help us to
always have pure and unconditional love as our only motive. We know also that as we
sow love into the lives of others, we will reap an abundant harvest of love in our own
lives. Thank you for the love you have extended to your children, even though we had
done nothing to merit it. Help us to love others as you have loved, without condition or
requirement.
You are the God of Peace and Compassion. You show us the way that we should
go but sometimes we prefer the ways of war and conflict. Nations bicker and fight one
another. Family members abuse each other and fail to find reconciliation. We pray for
your healing touch upon this world of your creating. We pray for lasting peace and
understanding.
We lift up in prayer those who mourn this day. We thank you for the life of Eva
Vinter who died yesterday. Thank you for her gentle contribution to the world and for her
faithful witness to so many people over so may decades.
As we think about visionaries of the Church, we remember those brave pioneers
who, so many years ago, decided to begin a congregation in the wilderness of
Southwestern Upper Canada. Their simple log structure led to creation of the faith family
that we are today. Thank you for their courage and for the faithfulness of those who
followed. We are in a long line of saints and ask that generations of the future may find
us faithful. May your Spirit empower us and fill us with the same love as we walk the
path the you set before us.
We pray for the sick of our congregation and community. We remember Doug
Montgomery and Sharon Hedge and pray for a special measure of your Healing Spirit to
bless them with wholeness and love.
You, O God, give meaning to our lives. You fill us with delight. You sent you Son,
Jesus to be our brother and friend and to teach us your way and word. We pray for the
Church, for one another, and for ourselves that we may be your hands, your feet, your
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heart and your voice. We raise our prayers in Jesus’ name. Amen
WORSHIP RESOURCE PAGE
April 19, 2015 / Easter 3
SCRIPTURE
Psalm 4; Luke 24:36b-48; 1 John 3:1-7; Acts 3:12-19
CALL TO WORSHIP
We come to you in worship, O God.
We call to you with our deepest needs.
We sing our praise to glorify your name.
We seek you presence in our lives.
By your Spirit, rejoice with us and fill us with life anew.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
You, O God, are a God of joy. What joy we have when we come to you. What joy is ours when we trust
in you to provide for our every need. Rejoice with us, O God, on this anniversary Sunday. Remind us of
your constant presence. How great and gracious you are. When we consider the stars and the moon and
the greatness of the sun, who are we that you care for us. What significance do we have as such small
creatures in such a huge creation? But your promise is that you know each of us by name. You know our
every action, our every thought. We are blessed because you are our God who lives and reigns now and
forever. Amen.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
In the midst of our praise, we are also mindful of our propensity to sin. We often fall away. Sometimes
we do in knowingly. Other times, we fall by mistake or carelessness. We have failed to follow your
word and been unable to stand in your presence for you cannot abide sin. You love us so much that you
rescued us by sending Jesus to give his life on the cross for us and for our salvation. Remind us of his
life and his sacrifice as we confess our sins to you. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
The unconditional love of God is open and available to everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus
Christ and puts their faith in him. Hear the Good News and receive it into your hearts. Through faith in
Christ, we are right with God and made one with the Heavenly Kingdom.
DEDICATION OF OFFERING
These gifts, these offerings are from you hand, objects of your creative power and imagination. Give us
the imagination to risk using them for new and exciting ministry. Enable us to dream of better and more
faithful ways to serve you with all that we have. Amen.
COMMISSIONING
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God calls us to gather in worship. God also calls us to go back into the world. It is time to return to the
rest of our lives and to be the hands, the feet and the voice of Jesus.
MESSAGE OUTLINE
The Rev. Kim Gilliland
April 19, 2015
PURIFIED BY CHRIST
CHILDREN OF GOD
The passage compares and contrasts the children of God and the children of the devil.
We can tell one from the other by their actions
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone
who does no do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
1 John 3:10 (NIV)
ACTIONS
Don’t just talk the talk; walk the walk.
All of us will fail at times to do that.
Peter promised to never disown Jesus.
Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.
Matthew 26:33 (NIV)
Even if I have to die with you. I will never disown you.
Matthew 26:35 (NIV)
But then Peter did disown Jesus.
Then [Peter] began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, “I don’t know the
man!” Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken:
“Before the rooster crows you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept
bitterly.
Matthew 26:74-75 (NIV)
A person’s character is known not by what they think, feel or intend but by what they actually do.
Joseph’s brothers intended evil when the sold him into slavery but their actions were exactly what
God wanted and in an odd kind of way, they did what God wanted them to do.
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the
saving of many lives.
Genesis 50:20 (NIV)
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IS SINLESSNESS POSSIBLE?
The children of God and the children of the devil are distinguished through their actions.
Jesus said something similar about false and true prophets.
You can tell who the false prophets are by their deeds.
Matthew 7:20 (NIV)
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Matthew 7:18 (NIV)
What kind of fruit is each of us bearing?
None of us is perfect but John seems to indicate that we should be.
No one who lives in [Christ] keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him
or known him.
1 John 3:6 (NIV)
The problem is with the translation. The Message gives a more accurate rendering of the passage.
No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin. None of those who do practice sin have
taken a good look at Christ. They’ve got him all backwards.
1 John 3:6 (Msg)
While we will continue to sin, we should not make a practice of sinning.
We should seek to not willfully commit the same sins over and over again.
We cannot do that by ourselves.
We cannot change ourselves.
It is work of grace by the power of the Holy Spirit.
YOUR LIFE AS AN ADVERTISEMENT
It is important to live with right actions because people see what we do.
Good actions on our part will sometimes help to lead others to Christ.
But wrong actions could turn people off forever.
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