1 John 1:5-2:2 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Third Sunday of Easter Sunday, April 14, 2024 “Our Meaningful Message Is Valid and Valuable”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” “Life is a mystery.” “Good things come to those who wait.” Can I reasonably assume that you have heard, or maybe said, at least one of these phrases? Perhaps you’ve heard them all. And what they all have in common is that we would probably use them in a bad situation. We would tell them to someone who is suffering in some way, someone trying to figure out why things are not the way they had hoped or wanted them to be. If everything is going just fine, we don’t worry too much about whether life is a mystery. If we’re not facing challenges, then we’re not focused on the troubles that could make us stronger so long as they don’t kill us first. And if I already have the good things, I am not too concerned about waiting. But how useful are these phrases, really, when people are facing challenges? If I were to visit you after a round of chemotherapy and find you tired and worried and feeling awful, would you be pleased to hear me say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? If you have been distraught about a financial challenge and struggling with not just what to do but also why this is happening, would it help to have a friend say, “Well, life is a mystery”? And what if a relationship has been strained, and you’re dealing with that pain. Does it help at all for someone to say, “Good things come to those who wait”? While people might default to these sorts of phrases because they have heard them or they don’t know what else to say, there is nothing particularly meaningful about them. So it is our joy to consider, to hear, and to share a message that is actually meaningful. The several verses of 1 John that we read as our Second Reading will help us consider this message today and what makes it different than the other options we’ve heard or any other message that the world might suggest to us. What sets apart the message of Scripture, the message of Jesus, the message God inspired John to share with us is that it is both true and useful. In other words, our meaningful message is valid and valuable. God moved the Apostle John to write these words in a letter to his dear children in the faith. He introduced the letter with four verses which we heard in our worship services last week, emphasizing that he had the experience of seeing Jesus and touching him. John was speaking from the position of an eyewitness. And so he launches into the heart of his message with the words of our text: 5This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. 6If we say we have fellowship with him but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice. And in John’s own unique style, he has in just a few short verses introduced the theme to which he will circle back several times in our section. He has a message. It is the message that is so vital for him to share and for his hearers to focus on. It is a message about God, and it is a message about us. The briefest way to summarize the message is this: God is light. Expanding on that, John says that in him is no darkness. So those who have fellowship with God will walk in godly ways. They walk in the light. And we can’t simply claim to be walking in the light. If we claim to have fellowship with God, we can’t go on walking in darkness. John wants us to learn as a part of this meaningful message the truth about ourselves. He returns to that truth several times in these verses. The truth is that we are sinful people. We have lived in darkness. We cannot claim to be free from sin. That is deceiving ourselves and calling God a liar. Do you see how important the truth is when it comes to finding a meaningful message? The truth is essential. For a meaningful message to be valid, it has to be accurate. We can’t be sure that good things will always come to those who wait, but we can be absolutely sure of the truth about our lives. We were born in darkness. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We’ve also learned this truth from our experience. We’ve felt the tug of a guilty conscience. We’ve seen the suffering that comes from the actions we have done. We need an answer to our unrighteousness. God’s Word makes it absolutely clear that we have sinned, and we dare not claim that God is a liar.